Part II

1. The Three Unclean Spirits

“And I saw out of the Mouth of the Dragon, and out of the Mouth of the Beast, and out of the Mouth of the False Prophet, three unclean spirits like to Frogs (for they are spirits of Dæmons working wonders) go forth unto the kings of the earth, and of the whole habitable, to gather them together for the war of that great day of the Deity who is almighty.”

A mouth is apocalyptically a symbol of government, through which the political organization of which it is the executive, gives expression to its policy. In this remarkable text, three such mouths are indicated, as first, the Mouth of the Dragon Polity; second, the Mouth of the Beast Polity; and third, the Mouth of the False Prophet Polity. THE MOUTH OF THE DRAGON is termed in ch. xii. 15, the mouth of the p. 553 Serpent; and in ver. 16, the mouth of the Dragon: one and the same mouth, because the Serpent and Dragon indicate the same polity—sin imperially manifested in the flesh: the symbolical Devil and Satan; and enthroned in CONSTANTINOPLE.

THE MOUTH OF THE BEAST is identical with the mouth of the Beast of the Earth, which speaks as a dragon—ch. xiii. 11; and which appears in ch. xvii., as the imperial scarlet-colored supporter of the Mother of Harlots, having an Eighth Head. This mouth has been for a long time enthroned in VIENNA; but in the days of Charlemagne, who founded the dominion, the seat of its secular dominion was Aix-la-Chapelle at present included in Prussian territory.

THE MOUTH OF THE FALSE PROPHET is identical with the Lion Mouth of ch. xiii. 2, 5, 6. This is the Mouth which speaks “great things and blasphemies.” It is the Mouth also of the Image—ch. xiii. 15—the Two-Horned Ecclesiastical element of the European Polity, headed up in the Papal Dynasty, and enthroned in ROME.

Out of these three several political centres, three unclean spirits go forth whose resemblance is like to Frogs. There were not three unclean spirits out of each mouth; but only one out of each, making three in all. The unclean spirits are “spirits of Dæmons.” Of the number of the dæmons, no hint is given whether they are many or few. Half a dozen or more dæmons operating upon the Dragon, Beast, and False Prophet, only excite the outflow of an unclean spirit from each, which is characterized by a symbol, representative of the power whose wonder-working dæmon causes the mouth to speak. The Spirit of the Dragon, the Spirit of the Beast, and the Spirit of the False Prophet are “unclean,” or unholy; and in their operation after the advent, directed against that which is holy and true, even against “the Deity who is almighty.” They are the spirits which cause the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies to gather together to make war against Him that then sits on the white horse, and against his army—ch. xix. 11, 19: xvii. 14. The spirits themselves are sanguinary and warlike policies, through which the governments indicated breathe out threatenings and slaughters against their adversaries. These policies are generated in the minds of cabinets by the diplomatic influences therein developed. The influence that gains the ascendant affirms the policy that rules, and becomes the spirit of the executive or mouth. When it speaks it proclaims war, and puts in operation all the machinery necessary to carry it into effect.

In the English Version these spirits are termed “the spirits of devils.” This is inaccurate, and arises from the translators erroneously supposing that dæmons and “devils” were the same things. The phrase is πνευματα δαιμονων, spirits of dæmons. These apocalyptic p. 554 entities are political dæmons; dæmons that have to do with politics, civil aad ecclesiastical. It is true, they may be διαβολοι, devils, as Judas was (Jno. vi. 70) but all devils are not dæmons. The dæmons of this prophecy are official personages engaged in doing or working out, signs, wonders, or remarkable events, ποιουντα σημεια; all tending, in their combined operation, to the development of the situation termed “the war of that great day of the Deity who is almighty.”

The Greeks, in their system of superstition, made a distinction between θεοι, gods, and δαιμονες, dæmons. Over all there was Ζευς, their king and father. The dæmons were gods of an inferior order, yet an aerial race, occupying the third rank in their heavens. They were regarded as possessing wonderful intelligence; and in consequence of their middle position in the air, acting as interpreters and mediators between the superior gods and men. “The whole dæmonial race,” says Socrates, “is between God and mortals, acting as interpreters or messengers to both. Through this race passes all divination, and the art of the priests; for God mingles not directly with the human race, but through these dæmons is ever carried on the intercourse between the gods and men, both when awake and when asleep.” Plato says, that in the reign of Saturn the dæmons were the political governors of mankind, ruling men as man rules the inferior animals. “Saturn knowing,” saith he “how that human nature, in the absolute self-control of human affairs, can never avoid being filled with violence and unrighteousness, appointed as rulers and magistrates to our cities, not men, but beings of a divine and nobler race, namely, the Dæmons. We do not constitute oxen as rulers over oxen, nor goats over goats, but we ourselves retain the dominion; the same thing did the Deity, because he was a lover of men. He appointed over us a better race than ourselves, namely, the Dæmons.”

This exhibition of dæmons excludes all idea of their being devils. But this teaching of Socrates and Plato, styled by Paul “the wisdom of the world,” is made foolish by the gospel; nevertheless, its fiction was convenient for symbolical representation of political analogies. Thus, the governments of the world and their high agents and officials, are a system of power, ordered, or arranged, by the Deity. They occupy a position in “the Air” (ch. xvi. 17), or political firmament, intermediate between Him and mankind in general. They are therefore Dæmons, a superior order of agents to the common herd; though often intellectually and morally inferior to many among the humblest of mankind. In unfigurative language, kings, cabinets, councils, conferences, ambassadors, ministers of state, and such like, are the p. 555 Dæmons of the prophecy in hand. They are not to be confounded with τα δαιμονια, the dæmonia of ch. ix. 20. The fictitious ghosts of the Virgin-goddess, and of all the other saint-gods and saint-goddesses of the Romish superstition, are the dæmonials, answering to the dæmons of the pagan Greeks; but the dæmons of ch. xvi. 14, are real official men, such as the Sultan, the Austrian and French emperors, the pope, and their political representatives.

2. “Like to Frogs”

This is the only place in the apocalypse where “frogs” are introduced. They are produced here by way of illustrating the character of the spirits that, in the period of the sixth vial, would issue forth from the dragon, beast, and false prophet’s, governments to all the rulers of the earth and habitable; and in a parallel series with the series of events by which the power of the Euphratean Ottoman empire is drying up. There can be no doubt, that the wrath of the sixth vial is and has been for the past forty-eight years, drying up this power. This is not to be gainsaid. It is an event, a sign-event, too notorious and palpable to be disputed. On the supposition, that the reader is not one of “the hypocrites, who cannot discern the signs of the times” (Matt. xvi. 3); but is an intelligent observer and reader of current history—I would ask him, what power has been the most officious, suggestive, active, intriguing, and meddlesome, in all the political questions that have agitated the world, during the past twenty years; and amid the greatest professions of peace and progress, has, in that period, caused the most wars, and the greatest apprehensions of more? To this inquiry, but one answer can be given; and that is, the imperialized French democratic, termed “the Second Empire.” This is a remarkable and leading feature of the times. French imperial policy is the moving and formative spirit of the situation; and when brought to bear upon Constantinople, Vienna, and Rome, political results are developed, or “unclean spirits go forth,” in which the hand of French diplomacy is plainly to be seen—the spirits exhibit froggy characteristics.

Such is the great and undeniable political fact, which is as much the subject of the prophecy of the sixth vial, as the drying up of the Ottoman power, and the coming of Christ. It was shown to John, that in the sixth vial period there would be a power of no little influence, whose symbol was the Frog. If then it can be established, that the Frogs are armorially representative of the French power, we shall have a harmony between historical and present facts and the prophecy as one of the great signs of the times, which no sane p. 556 and candid observer will venture to neglect or dispute. The testimony to establish this is as follows:

1. Montfaucon, in his Monumens de la Monarchie Francaise, p. 4, plate vi., gives a Frog as one of the monuments of the French king, Childeric; thus writing respecting it, “3. Another medal representing a frog, which was also an Egyptian symbol.” This was found A. D. 1623, at St. Brice, near Tournay, with other things belonging to Childeric. He reigned A. D. 456. That is, before the Franks acknowledged the Roman Bishop.

Medal of a Frog found in the tomb of Childeric I.

2. In the “Monde Primitif, compare avec le Monde Moderne,” par M. Court de Gebelin, Paris, 1781, the author thus writes, p. 181, “Nous venons de voir que les Armoiries de la Guyenne sont un leopard, celles des Celts (surtout les Belgiques) etoient un lion, et celles des Francs un crapaud. Le crapaud designe les marais dont sortirent les Francs.” And again, on p. 195, “La Cosmographie de Munster (l. ii.) nous a transmit un fait tres remarquable dans ce genre. Marcomir, Roi des Francs, ayant penetre de la Westphalie dans le Tongre, vit en songe une figure a trois tetes, l’ une de lion, l’autre d’aigle, la troisieme de crapaud. Il consulta la dessus, ajoute on, un celebre druide de la contree, appele Al Runus; et celuici l’assura que cette figure designoit les trois puissances qui auroient regne successivemens sur les Gauls; les Celts dont le symbole etoit le lion, les Romains designes par l’aigle, et les Francs par le crapaud, a cause de leur marais.”^a

3. In the sixth century, xlvi. of the prophecies of Nostra Damus (p. p. 557 251) translated by Garencieres of London, 1672, occur the following lines:

Unjuste sera un exil envoye\ Par pestilence aux confins de non seigle;\ Response au rouge le fera desvoye,\ Roi retirant a la Rane et a l’aigle.

On which, Garencieres observes: “by the eagle he meaneth the emperor; and by the frog, the king of France; for, before he took the fleur de luce, the French bore three frogs.”

4. In Pynson’s edition of Fabyan’s Chronicle, at the beginning of the account of Pharamond—the first king of the Franks who reigned at Treves about A. D. 420—there is a shield of arms bearing three frogs, (p. 37, Ellis’ edit.); with the words beneath,

[This is the Olde Armys of France.]

The banner underneath, having upon it the three frogs, is from ancient tapestry in the cathedral of Rheims, representing battle scenes of Clovis, who is said to have been baptized there after his conversion to Romanism.

The Banner of Clovis.

p. 558 The next engraving is from the Franciscan church at Innspruck; where is a row of tall bronze figures, twenty-three in number, representing principally the most distinguished personages of the House of Austria; the armor and costumes being those chiefly of the 16th century, and the workmanship excellent. Among them is Clovis, king of France, and on his shield three fleur de lis and three frogs, with the words underneath, “Clodovœus der i Christenlich kunig von Frankreich;” that is, Clovis the first christian king of France.

Armorial Shield of Clovis.

1. Uptonus de Militari Officio, p. 155, states that three frogs were the old arms of France, without specifying what race of kings.

2. Professor Schott supposes the three frogs to have been distinctly the original arms of the Bourbons; bourbe signifying mud. This may have been the case. When their family became the dynasty of France, they probably assumed the frogs as their arms, being kings of the Franks, whose symbol it had been so long. The Bourbons arose out of the mud which is natural to frogs, and by the revolution of 1848 are deep in the mud again!

3. Typoticus, p. 75, gives as the device on a coin of Louis VI., the last French king before Hugh Capet, the first of the Bourbons, a frog with the inscription Mihi terra lacusque, land and water are mine, i. e. I am amphibious.

4. In the “Encyclopædia Metropolitana,” on Heraldry, it is stated that “Paulus Emilius blazons the arms of France, argent three diadems gules;” others say, they bear ‘three toads,’ sable in a field p. 559 vert—ap. Gwillim, c. 1.—which, if ever they did, it must have been before the existence of the present rules.”

Such is the testimony I have to offer in the case before us. The conviction produced on my mind is, that the Frogs in the prophecy are the symbol of the French democratic power. It will be seen from the armorial shield of Clovis, that the frogs and the lilies were both used as symbols. They are both indigenous to wet, or marshy, lands, and therefore very fit emblems of the French, who came originally from the marshes of Westphalia. But on the shield of Pharamond, so far back as A. D. 420, the frogs without the lilies appear in the armorial bearings of the Franks; and in the medal of Childeric I. there is no lily, but the frog only. It would therefore seem from this, that the lilies were not the original arms, but superadded many years after; and at length adopted by the Bourbons as the symbol of their race in its dominion over the frogs. These, then, represent the nation, and the lilies, or “fleur de lis,” the ruling dynasty. Now, if the apostle had said, “I saw three unclean spirits ‘like lilies’ come out of the Mouths,” he would have intimated by such a similitude that the French Bourbons were the cause of the “unclean spirits” issuing forth from the sultan, the emperor, and the Roman prophet. But he does not say this; he says they were like frogs. The truth, then, is obvious. In A. D. 96, when John was an exile in Patmos, the Franks were savages in an untamed country, living by hunting and fishing like American Indians. But the Holy Spirit revealed to him, that this people would play a conspicuous part in the affairs of nations; and, foreseeing by what symbol they would represent themselves, he symbolized their nation by it, and styled them “Frogs.” He informed him, that under the sixth vial their influence would be remarkably apparent. That the Frog-nation would have much to do with the dragon, beast, and false prophet; in fact, that so intimate and direct would their dealings be with them, that its effect would be perceived in the warlike tendency and influence of the measures proceeding from the sultan, the emperor, and the pope; who, being so completely entangled in the complications created by the policy of the Frog-power, would in their endeavors to extricate themselves, involve the whole habitable in war, which would end in the destruction of the two-horned beast, and the false prophet, and in the subjugation of the surviving horns to the new Imperial dominion of the kings of the Sun’s risings, whose way is prepared by the drying up of the Great River Euphrates.

p. 5603. The Going Forth of the Frog-Spirits

The restoration of the Bourbons by foreign bayonets, in 1815, was a heavy blow and great discouragement, but not destructive, of the revolutionary spirit of 1789. A power had organized itself under the title of “the Holy Alliance,” consisting of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, who bound themselves by a treaty at Paris, the real object of which was to maintain despotic and arbitrary power, in church and state, and to support each other against any revolutionary movement among their own subjects. They regarded themselves as delegated by Providence to govern three branches of one and the same Christian nation, of which the Divine Being, under his three characters, was the sole real sovereign. This was a sort of anticipatory division of the great city into three parts—Greek Catholic under Russia; Latin Catholic under Austria and the Pope; and Protestant under Prussia. Having made this arrangement, they declared their readiness to receive into their holy alliance all the powers (the Ten Horns of the Beast) who should solemnly avow, what they styled, the sacred principles that had dictated it.

All this was very discouraging to The Revolution, which was not dead, though dethroned, but slumbering; and gathering new explosive force for another effort against the enemy. It made itself heard and felt again in Spain and Portugal, to the great disgust of the French Bourbons. In Naples also, through the intrigues of the Carbonari, it was giving effect to constitutional principles. This alarmed the Austrian, who dreaded the propagation of revolutionary ideas which threatened to undermine the stability of his power in Italy. In 1821, the “Holy Alliance” held a consultation upon Naples at Troppau, whence in the arrogance of power, they summoned its king to meet them at Laybach, as if he had been one of their vassals or subjects. He obeyed. They dictated the invasion of his kingdom by Austrian troops. He consented. The revolutionary parliament was dissolved, the old despotism restored, and Ferdinand became a mere satrap to execute the orders issued from the Viennese Mouth of the Beast.

The revolutionary condition of things in Spain and Portugal was beheld by the Russian Autocrat with disgust and indignation, and caused him to convene a congress at Verona, in which it was determined to use the French Bourbons for the restoration of the old regime in Spain. In 1832, duc d’Angouleme invaded the country with 70,000 men, who took possession of Madrid, garrisoned all its pricipal fortresses, and virtually reduced Ferdinand to vassalage under the “Holy Alliance.”

p. 561 But the artful policy of these powerful confederates against constitutional freedom, and the happiness of mankind was doomed to a rude and potent shock in 1830. In the words of the Journal des Debats, “it seemed that the volcano which closed in 1815 was beginning to emit flames again.” The first Napoleon spoke truly when he said that the princes of the House of Bourbon were all imbecilles. Their subserviency to the “Holy Alliance,” and the decline of French influence in Europe, disgusted all parties with their rule. The revolution rose against the government, and routed it at the barricades. Charles X, the representative of the Elder Branch of the Bourbons, fled to England, and Louis Phillippe was accepted as the “Citizen King of the French,” in his stead. But, though there was more of the principles of ’89 in this dynasty, it was still Bourbon. The fleur de lis was still the master of the situation; and, as time has proved, not the power to execute the mission of the Frogs. The younger branch of the Bourbons reigned eighteen years, in which various revolutionary attempts were made to destroy its citizen representative. In all this period the French had as much constitutional liberty, perhaps more, than they knew how to enjoy. Property was protected, life was safe, and ample scope afforded for money making, and profitable investment of capital; all of which, in all countries, affords much satisfaction to the middle classes, the bourgoisie, who imagine that the world was made for their especial profit and convenience. This, however, is a great mistake. The Bourbon kings had helped to dry up the Great River Euphrates; and the time had come in 1848, to direct French influence and power towards other objects. To elaborate these, it was necessary to remove the Bourbon Lilies, and to bring a more revolutionary agency upon the stage. The Bourbons forgot nothing and learned nothing. Their sympathies were all with the stagnant past, by the malaria of which they had become “imbecile.” The spirit of the age is “the Spirit of life from the Deity that entered into the two unburied dead prophets”—ch. xi. 9-11—in 1789. This is a restless, revolutionary, progressive, spirit, essentially hostile to the papacy, priestcraft, and all the governments that sustain them. This spirit was widely diffused among the people of Europe in 1848; but intensely active in France, Italy, and Germany. In France especially, the volcanic fires broke out for the third time with a fury, which all the strength and policy of half a dozen forms of government during a period of sixty years, had failed to quench. In this “wonderful year,” the throne of the “Citizen King,” which had been set up by a ruse played off by Lafayette upon the revolutionists of 1830, was leveled to the ground; and the fleur de lis indignantly trampled in the dust. There was a p. 562 general rising of the people throughout Europe against the governments which oppressed them; and every throne tottered to its foundation. In France, the kingly form of government was utterly repudiated; and the DEMOCRATIC AND SOCIAL REPUBLIC upon the basis of “Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality,” established in its stead. Here was a revival of the Republic of 1793, founded upon the fall of the Bourbons, and subverted, or perverted, by Napoleon I. The battle was fought by the workmen in the streets of Paris; the victory was theirs: it was the victory of THE FROGS over the FLEUR DE LIS. The dynasty represented by this flower was abolished; and the marsh people resumed their original Westphalian right of choosing the most notable frog among them for their ruler. But for four months their government and National Assembly were only provisional. During this time, it was practically the parliament and executive of the democracy throughout Europe. Under the influence of their favor Germany, Italy, and Hungary, became insurgent. The earth shook on every side. Urged on by its democracy, Sardinia attacked the Austro-Italian element of the Little Horn; and provoked by the treachery of its Papal Eyes and Mouth, the democracy of Rome became insurrectionary, and so alarmed him, that he fled for safety to the kingdom of Naples. But Sardinia was not successful. By the defeat at Novara, the Austrian became paramount in Italy. This alarmed the Parisian Frogs, who did not wish the False Prophet to be reinstated in Rome under Austrian protection. They determined, therefore, although Rome was in possession of a sister Democratic and Social Republic, to seize upon the Seven Hills, and to get the pope into their own keeping. Hence, they drove out Mazzini and Garibaldi with their adherents; abolished the Roman Republic; and reestablished the Pope. By this move, they got possession of Rome, and the Frog-power became an element in the policy of the Beast of the Earth and his Prophet; so that any spirit going forth from their Mouths would have resemblance to the Frogs, whose policy might originate, or give it shape.

Thus began the French occupation of Rome in 1849. They occupied it, not out of love to the Pope, but as a check upon Austria and Italy. Austria and the Papacy, by concordat,^a are one horn with two capitals. The spiritual authority of the Pope is above the authority of the emperor in all the Austrian empire, until the concordat is repealed; and the natural ally and protector of the Pope is his Austrian “Apostolic Majesty.” The Frog-power in Rome is a nuisance, tolerated there because it cannot be expelled. If the Frog-power had not intervened in 1849, Rome and Italy would have been p. 563 subject to the Little Horn with Eyes; and the current of events turned into a different channel. The Austro-Papal dominion would have been strong in 1867; and not as it is now, almost ready to give up the ghost. It has been the working of the Frog-power for nearly twenty years past, that has developed what we know to exist in Italy and the Roman States. The “unclean spirit going forth” from the Viennese Mouth, and the “unclean spirit going forth” from the Roman Mouth, in all that period, have been spirits in political shape “like to Frogs.”

By a vote of six millions, the plebiscite of the Frogs, the nephew of their great emperor was elected PRESIDENT of the Democratic and Social Republic. Having nearly served out his time, President Louis Napoleon determined to “save society” by slaying some two thousand people in the streets of Paris, sending numbers into exile, and making himself EMPEROR OF THE FROGS. Having accomplished this feat, he appealed to universal suffrage to sanctify this usurpation, and copious bloodshedding for the good of the social constitution. By aid of the machinery employed, and the prestige of his uncle’s name, the Frogs accepted him as their emperor; and he now sits among the powers, in spite of the “Holy Alliance,” and in defiance of the treaty of Vienna, as the “Mysterious Man of Destiny,” the arbiter of Europe; the smiles of whose countenance is peace, and his frowns the thundercloud of war.

In regard to the Sultan, the revolution that placed the Frogs in power was more to his advantage than otherwise. Under Charles X. and Louis Phillippe, the French had assisted in drying him up; but since the fall of the Bourbons, the Frogs, in concert with England, had assured him of their support in case of attack from Russia; and had declared their policy in the Eastern Question to be, the integrity and independence of the Ottoman empire. In 1850, I remarked, that “this assurance was certain, sooner or later, to bring on a war between the Porte and the Autocrat. If the Sultan had been left to himself, being weak, he would have yielded, and so have avoided the chance of war; but being energized by France and England, two strong military and naval powers, the Sultan feels himself a match for Russia, and prepared to asssume a bold and warlike attitude.” And so it came to pass in 1854; when, inspired by the policy of the Frog-power, the “unclean spirit issued form” the Sultan-Mouth of the Constantinopolitan Dragon, in a declaration of war against Russia, and an attack upon Sevastopol by the French and English forces.

Thus, by the revolution began in Feb., 1848, the Frogs were developed, and assumed the position marked out for them in the p. 564 prophecy of the sixth vial. They were not to stand alone. If they had been destined to operate by themselves, the prophecy would probably have read, “I saw three unclean spirits like to Frogs go forth unto the kings of the earth,” and so forth. Had it read thus, our observation would have been confined to Paris, where the Frogs are imperially enthroned; and we should have watched for the going forth of the three unclean spirits from that city. Or, had the words, “like to Frogs,” been omitted altogether, we should then have had no evidence to show, that the French were any more related to the “unclean spirits” than the Swedes or Hindoos. But, there the words are most ingeniously inserted; so that it may be perceived, that in the thirteenth verse, four leading political organizations, the French, the Constantinopolitan, the Viennese, and the Roman, are made the principal coöperating agencies in the work of developing the situation of the fourteenth verse. The working of these four powers, the French, Ottoman, Austrian, and Papal, in their political transactions with “the kings of the earth, and of the whole habitable,” contemporaneously with the “dried up” condition of the Turkish power, is the GREAT SIGN MANIFESTED IN THE HEAVEN, that the Son of man is about stealthily to come in; and to resume the mission interrupted by his assumption to the right hand of Power—Matt. xxiv. 30; Isai xlix. 4-6. It is a sign of the times so manifest, that all who take interest in current events, not only can, but do see it. They see that the Ottoman Power is a Sick Man, with only two strong friends, France and England, who stand guard at the door of his house to prevent assassins from breaking in, and plundering him of all that remains of his estate. They see also, that, for the past twenty years, there has been no great political question mooted among the powers, whether in regard to Italy, the “Holy Places,” Austria, the Poles, Mexico, Rome, Denmark, or Luxembourg, but that the French emperor has been the great agitator of the situation. All this they see, and wonder at. They term him a mysterious man, the arbiter of Europe, a man of destiny; and some regard him ridiculously enough, as the Antichrist. Nevertheless, they fail to see, the great signification of the great sign they observe; or indeed, to comprehend that it is a sign at all.

Observation and reflection during the twenty years of the development of this remarkable Frog-Sign, have confirmed me in the conviction, that the exposition I originated in my lectures in Britain in 1848-50, and afterwards in Elpis Israel, was substantially correct. It could not then be proved, that the sign was to spread itself over twenty years; though it might have been conjectured, that it would continue in manifestation until the thieflike coming of the Ancient p. 565 of Days. We are now at this writing, in the spring of 1868, near the last months of the 1260 years, during which the saints were sentenced to involuntary subjection to the Little Horn with Eyes and Mouth; and the Frog Sign is still in manifestation. My present conviction is, that the Frogs will continue to work even after the Ancient of Days comes, and until the gathering into Armageddon; and that their working is a providential element of the means to be employed, in bringing the armies of the Dragon, the Beast, the Ten Horns and their False Prophets, into collision with the King of the Jews, and the kings of His rising. But this being in the near future, we shall not have long to wait to know the truth of the matter.

The Frog-Sign, interpreted by events, divides itself into sectional developments; first, the operation of the Frogs upon the Constantinopolitan Dragon; then, their operation upon the Austrian Beast; and third, their operation upon the Roman Prophet. These operations began at successive periods in the order they occupy in the prophecy; but though commencing at different times, the first operation is not finished when the second begins; but the first and second in their effects continue in contemporaneous operation with the third; so that when the Ancient of Days comes, the whole three will be brought to bear against him with all their accumulated force.

4. The First Phase of the Frog-Sign

The most notable illustration of the working of the Frogs in their developing of the unclean spirit from the Mouth of the Dragon, is seen in the σημεια, signs, wonders, or events, they originated and worked out, in regard to the “Holy Places of Jerusalem,” as against the rival pretensions of Russia. Their policy in respect of these; brought the Autocrat into a threatening attitude against the Sultan to whom they belong; or rather, who has present possession of them; for they belong exclusively to the King of the Jews, who is coming to set aside all claimants by appropriating them himself. But in advance of this decision, the Frog-Emperor, ignoring the secular supremacy of the Austrian Apostolic Majesty of Vienna in things pertaining to Latinism in the East, as “the Eldest Son of the Church,” claimed supremacy over the “Holy Places,” and to have the right, therefore, of putting them in repair. Against this unwarrantable pretension the Russian Tzar, as the Orthodox Head of the Greek Catholic Church, protested; and threatened the Sultan with war, if he yielded to the claims of France. As the Frogs or the Russians prevailed at Constantinople, a firman was granted, revoked, and granted again, endowing the Frog-Power with preferential rights p. 566 in ecclesiastical affairs connected with the Holy Shrines. Having carried its point in Constantinople, the Frog-Power endeavored to maintain the advantage gained there by negotiating at St. Petersburg; but its instructions to the French minister were not of a nature to facilitate a settlement. The effect of Frog-diplomacy there is seen in the fact, that when the Prince-Bishop Daniel returned from St. Petersburg to Montenegro, he descended, without previous notice, from his mountains upon the Turkish garrison at Zabljak, and in the night slaughtered all he found there. Thus the war that followed was a Russo-Montenegrin experiment against Turkey, remotely and unintentionally excited by the Frogs. The fire thus kindled excited the wrathfulness of Austria against the Sultan. Count Leiningen was sent from Vienna in great haste as the bearer of a threatening message, demanding the termination of hostilities against Montenegro. The Sultan obeyed orders and things were replaced as before, to the chagrin of Russia who had excited it. The Autocrat had hoped that a general war would ensue between the Turkish government and the provinces of the empire. His Bessarabian troops were ready to enter the Moldo-Wallachian provinces, and the Sevastopol fleet was equipped for Constantinople. The pacific termination, therefore, of the struggle greatly annoyed Russia, which then demanded the independence of Montenegro, which, if granted, would have been equivalent to a trasfer of its mountain fastnesses from Turkey to Russia, as there can be no real independence for a horde.

Scarcely had the Sultan yielded obedience to Austria in the affair of Montenegro, than quite an avalanche of insolence descended from Russia upon the unfortunate Sick Man of Constantinople. Prince-Admiral Mentschikoff, Minister of Marine, Governor of Finland, and a relative of the Autocrat, arrived at Constantinople, unexpectedly to the Sultan and his Divan, but not to the Greek population of the city. He appeared there as the alter ego, or other self, of the Autocrat. He was surrounded by a brilliant escort of rear-admirals, generals, aides-de-camp, and many other distinguished persons. He was met at Topana by all the officers of the embassy on horseback, by all Russian subjects and protegés. Men in full uniform, loaded with orders, gold and diamonds, the ambassador in an open carriage, and surrounded by his staff, advanced toward the palace of the embassy, which he reached with difficulty, owing to the dense crowd of Greeks. This show of popularity was obtained by promises and money. The promises had reference to their obtaining the mosque of St. Sophia, built by Justinian, for the Greek Catholic worship, while whispers were adroitly circulated in their ears about the restoration of the Byzantine empire. p. 567 The sudden apparition of quasi Russian Majesty in the City of Constantinople excited the surprise of “the Great Powers.” The object of Mentschikoff’s mission was to check Turkey, and to humiliate and bind her to Russia. To effect this, demands were made directly antagonistic and subversive of the firman granted to the Frog-Power in favor of the jurisdiction of the Papal Church, and of French influence in the Holy Land. Ultimatum after ultimatum followed in quick succession; at length the Russians crossed the Pruth with the intention of locating in Constantinople, if nothing untoward prevented. This brought things to the crisis in the prophecy; and the “unclean spirit,” in unmistakable verisimilitude to the anti-Russian policy of the Frogs, “went forth from the Mouth of the Dragon,” in a declaration of war against Russia; and an endeavor, sustained by France and England, to gather other powers into the conflict for the preservation of the integrity and independence of the Ottoman empire, and the limitation of Russian ambition. Thus commenced the Crimean war in 1854. Sardinia joined England, France, and Turkey, through the influence of the Frogs; but Austria and Prussia refused to depart from their position of “armed neutrality.” Sevastopol and the Russian fleet were destroyed. The Tzar Nicholas suddenly died; soon after which the Frog-Power proposed a treaty of peace, which was discussed, and agreed to at Paris in 1856. Thus ended the Crimean war, which had threatened to become wide as the great city itself. The Frogs excited it by their policy in regard to Latinism and the “Holy Shrines;” and they quenched it when they found its continuance inconvenient. Turkey lost no territory, and “independence” she had none to lose.

From the foregoing illustration of the Frog-Sign in relation to the Mouth of the Dragon, it will hardly be regarded as presumption to say that the exposition I have given is the only true one that can be given. No other writer on the Apocalypse ever caught a glimpse of its signification. Mr. Elliott, who revised his State Church Exposition of the Apocalypse, in the time of the origination of the Frog-Sign, and therein devoted forty-one octavo pages to “the Three Frogs;” although he admits that the Frogs were the original symbol of the French power; and republishes from French, German, and English sources, the heraldic illustrations I have transferred to these pages; yet he sees nothing particular in it. He says, he hopes that it may “not be England’s sad fate to act the part of the chief secular power employed by the three spirits to head their gathering of the world’s powers to the last great anti-gospel war of Armageddon. Rather perhaps France, ‘the eldest son of the church,’ may be the country called to that bad pre-eminence. Signs have p. 568 not been wanting ever since the peace of Paris (in 1814) of the strong unvarying tendencies of France towards such a position in its foreign policy and proceedings. . . . Much more may such be the anticipation of reflective men, after the extraordinary expedition of the French army in 1849, under the republican regime of Louis Napoleon, and reëstablishment of the Pope at Rome. There is a curious heraldic fact accordant with this view, which (considering how frequently such national emblems have been had in view in the Apocalyptic figurations) I cannot permit myself to pass over in silence, though I wish by no means to insist much on it; namely, that, as the three spirits do each and all most assuredly energize in the French nation and priesthood, so their Apocalyptic symbol, the three frogs, are the old arms of France.” He regards the spirits as “three unclean, or unholy principles, characteristic of the Dragon, Beast, and False Prophet, directed and speeded by spirits of hell; and resembling frogs, the well-known type of vain loquacious talkers and agitators, deluding and seducing the minds of men.” The spirit from the Dragon’s Mouth, he says, is “the principle of pagan-like infidelity and scepticism, with its proper accompaniment of blasphemy; and perhaps, too, of rebelliousness of spirit against rightful authority, alike human and divine, ‘by which sin fell the angels.’” The spirit from the Beast’s Mouth he terms, “the pure direct principle of Popery, based on its fundamental antichristian dogma of the Roman Pope being Christ’s Vicegerent upon earth.” The spirit from the False Prophet’s Mouth, he styles “the spirit of an apostate priesthood.” These three spirits he regards as the unclean spirits of dæmons like frogs; and considers that the precise period marked out in the prophecy is to be regarded as the twenty years ending in 1850. Having laid these premises, he occupies about thirty-seven pages with a retrospective sketch of irrelevant matters, as foreign to the prophecy as if a frog had never passed before the mind of John.

Mr. Lord very properly rejects Mr. Elliott’s speculation; but, instead of throwing light upon the subject, only substitutes another, if not equally absurd, only less so, because he has very little to say about it at all. “Unclean demon spirits,” says he, “are demons or devils, which enter into human beings and excite them to lawless appetites and passions. But these spirits are clothed in forms, as appears from their being compared to FROGS;—hideous, grovelling, noisy, and amphibious.” This is all he sees in the Frogs—mere symbols of qualities. Mr. Lord wrote in 1847. Mr. Cunninghame regarded the frog-like spirits, as atheism, despotism, and popery. These are specimens of the ideas of what are regarded as the best p. 569 writers of the day upon apocalyptic themes. If these are the best, what must the worst be! Being “wells without water,” then it is useless to linger longer on the brink. We shall therefore take up our bucket and proceed.

5. The Second Phase of the Frog-Sign

The evolution of the Frog-Sign is continuous with the existence of the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet; and covers the whole period from 1848, till the gathering of the Powers in war with the Ancient of Days. When this result is consummated, “the Sign” will no longer be seen “in the heaven.” When writing upon the subject in 1854, I remarked, that “manifestations from Austria and the Pope are yet wanting to complete the sign. Austria must come into collision with France at last.” Five years after this the Frog-Sign entered upon the second phase in the going forth of the frog-excited unclean spirit from the Austrian Mouth of the Beast. Ever since the occupation of Rome by the French in 1849, Austria had also occupied Bologna and Ancona, important cities in the Papal States. However agreeable this might be to the Pope, it was exceedingly annoying to the Emperor of the Frogs, who desired the evacuation of the Roman States by the Austrian forces. It being a part of the mission of the Frogs, as time has shown, to deprive the False Prophet of the support of the Beast of the Earth, the Frog-emperor became restless and excited, and intolerant of the Austrians in Italy. On January 1, 1859, he said to the Austrian ambassador, “I regret that our relations with your Government are not so good as they were; but I request you to tell the Emperor that my personal feelings for him are not changed.” A high functionary of the French government remarked, that this conduct of the Emperor was incomprehensible. The abrupt proceeding was so extraordinary and uncalled for, that people seek for its cause in regions remote from politics. They cannot conceive that mere diplomatic disagreements would induce such an outburst of ill-temper, and so complete an absence of courtesy.

The emperor of the Frogs not only required the withdrawal of the Austrians from the Roman States, but that His Apostolic Majesty should join with him in causing certain reforms in the administration of the government. The Austrian Mouth expressed its readiness to recommend administrative reforms to the Papal Government, but it would never, even if a war should result from its refusal, cooperate in an attempt to enforce the execution of such reforms. In regard to the occupation of the Roman States, the Imperial Mouth p. 570 declared that it would withdraw its troops from Bologna and Ancona at the same moment that the French should quit Rome and Civita Vecchia; but that the right of garrison in Commachio, Ferrara, and Piacenza, which was sacred to Austria by treaty, should be maintained.

These conditions were by no means acceptable to the Emperor of the Frogs, between whom and the Emperor of the Beast there was now considerable jealousy and ill feeling. Francis Joseph was resolved not to bear any part of the yoke which it was thought Louis Napoleon was trying to impose on his brother sovereigns. A perfectly well-informed person remarked, that “for the sake of peace, the Emperor of Austria is ready and willing to make any concessions which are consistent with his honor and dignity, but he will not recognize the claim of the Emperor of the French to be considered the sole arbiter of all European questions of importance. His Majesty is of opinion that one power has no right to put a constraint upon the will of another, and he therefore declines to make those reforms which are considered necessary.”

This brings me to remark in further illustration of the Frog-Sign in entering upon its second phase, that at the Conference of Paris in 1856, the wrongs of Italy, as represented by the Sardinian plenipotentiary, had a hearing. The western allies sympathized, and remonstrated with Austria. But Austria would reform nothing, would promise nothing; and during the three years that afterwards elapsed, instead of ameliorating, she only aggravated, her despotic sway over Lombardy and Venetia. Italy was all the while growing more restless, and Sardinia, which assumed to be its champion, in like manner grew the more impatient to take up arms against the oppressor. The Frog-emperor, constitutionally jealous of the overshadowing Austrian influence in Italy; encouraged Sardinia in its hostile attitude; and through his cousin, Prince Jerome, formed a matrimonial conjunction with the House of Savoy. Thus the Frogs allied themselves with Italian liberty, and prepared the situation for the going forth of the unclean dæmon spirit from the Mouth of the Two-Horned Beast of the Earth; who, so long as he ruled in Italy, maintained the Image of the Beast in life, “that it should both speak, and cause that so many as would not worship the Image of the Beast should be killed”—Apoc. xiii. 15. The 1260 years allotted to this constitution of things was hastening to a conclusion; and to the Frogs was committed the working of the political machinery whereby the speaking and power of the Image would cease to be fatal to those who refused to worship it. We have lived to see this accomplished in all the kingdom of the Beast. Even in Rome the p. 571 Image ceases to cause men to be put to death who refuse to worship it. The Frogs are there, and will not permit it. They have worked Austria out of Italy and, as it were, placed the Pope under arrest upon the Seven Hills.

In the Herald of 1859, I remarked, “we are now waiting to see the Second Unclean Spirit of the Frog-Sign proceed out of the Mouth of the Beast in a declaration of war by Austria against Sardinia, and therefore against France. France has created the present crisis as she did the first under the inspiration of various collateral influences; but we do not expect the declaration of war from Paris. And it is extremely probable that, before this June number is received, war will be renewed.” And so it came to pass. War was proclaimed by the Imperial Austrian Mouth of the Beast against Sardinia. On this occasion, the following words found utterance from this Mouth: “The second French empire,” it said, “is about to realize its long-cherished ideas; for the Throned Power in Paris has informed the astonished world, that political wisdom will replace those treaties which have so long formed the basis of European international law. The traditions of the first Napoleon have been resuscitated, and Europe is not ignorant of the importance of the struggle which is about to begin.”

Again, the Two-Horned Beast-emperor, said, “the overthrow of the things that be is not only aimed at by factions, but by thrones;” that is, by France, Sardinia and Russia. But he continued, “the sword which I have been forced to draw is sanctified;” and suiting the action to the word while discussing the proposition of the Frogs, laid his hand upon his sword, and exclaimed, “Let the Emperor Louis Napoleon be told that I am too young to abdicate; he wants to pluck the Austrian Eagle: better to try and cut its throat. One thing let him remember in the coming struggle, that the game is far from equal between us. I risk a province; he stakes his empire on the issue of the war. Our struggle is a just one, and we begin it with courage aud confidence. We hope, however, that we shall not stand alone in it. The soil on which we have to do battle was made fruitful by the blood lost by our German brethren when they won those bulwarks which they have maintained up to the present day. There the crafty enemies of Germany have generally begun their game when they have wished to break her internal power. The feeling that such a danger is now imminent prevails in all parts of Germany, from the cottage to the throne—from one frontier to the other. I speak as a sovereign member of the Germanic Confederation, when I call attention to the common danger, and recall to memory the glorious times in which Europe had to p. 572 thank the general and fervent enthusiasm of Germany for its liberation. God and Fatherland! Francis Joseph.”

Thus spake the Mouth of the Beast, whose heavy tramp upon the populations of Central Italy, extorted “a cry of anguish,” which, reaching the ears of the king of Sardinia, caused him to unsheath the sword; and in concert with his “generous ally,” the Frog-emperor, to flesh it in the vitals of the oppressors; whom he proposed to expel, and so free the country from the Alps to the Adriatic.

The Frog-emperor informed the world, that “the object of the war was to restore Italy to herself.” He said, that “the national and traditional policy of France is to maintain civilization;” and that although she had passed through a severe and bloody career of seventy years, “France had not, for all that, abdicated her task of civilization. Her natural allies had always been those who desired the improvement of the human race; and when she drew the sword it was not to dominate, but to liberate.” Such a declaration as this was calculated to excite the liveliest expressions of good in the hearts of the downtrodden millions of Italy; and at the same time, the most dismal apprehensions of the False Prophet and his carrion birds of Rome. Therefore to keep their worshipers in France quiet, he declared that “he did not enter Italy to disturb the power of the Holy Father, whom France replaced upon the throne in 1849; but to remove from him the Austrian pressure, which weighed upon the whole peninsula, and to help to establish there order based upon legitimate satisfied interests.”

All parties having thus declared themselves, the battle cry was raised of “An united Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic, and Rome for the capital.” Soon after the opening of the campaign, the battles of Magenta and Solferino were fought, and won by the Franco-Sardinian forces. The Austrians were compelled to evacuate Lombardy; but they were still in possession of Venetia and the Quadrilateral, and the fortune of war might still favor the recovery of lost ground. But whatever might be the cause “the dark and mysterious man” to the astonishment of all the world, without consulting his allies, made overtures to Francis Joseph, proclaimed an armistice, and signed the preliminaries of peace at Villafranca. The campaign had lasted only two months, had cost the combatants about a hundred thousand lives, not less than a hundred millions sterling, and disappointed all expectations. The king of Sardinia hoped to be king of Italy, but had only obtained the annexation of Lombardy to Piedmont; the Frog-emperor promised to dry up the power of the Beast from the mountains to the Adriatic Sea, but had expelled its forces from Lombardy alone; the Garibaldini promised themselves the expulsion p. 573 of the Austrians from the whole country, the downfall of the Pope, and a free and united Italy; but realized none of their hopes: the Roman False Prophet and his priestly adherents, trembling for their worthless carcasses, were astonished to find their apprehensions unfulfilled, and the “Holy Father” the “honorary president” of a paper confederation!

For the past ten years the pope had been a kind of captive in his own little kingdom, guarded by French troops, and nominal sovereign of rather more than three millions of unwilling subjects, by the favor of the Frog-emperor. During this disgraceful period, both France and Austria had made vast efforts to sustain the moral power of the Papacy for the sake of its influence in their respective dominions in behalf of the atrocious tyranny in the one, and the suspension of liberty in the other. The Concordat between Austria and the Pope surrendered powers to the latter which Hildebrand might have sought in vain, and every despotic ruler felt the necessity of paying an apparent homage to the most conspicuous symbol of moral slavery and intellectual darkness extant upon the earth. Pius IX. had commenced his reign as a reforming pope; but the effort failed from the inherent impossibility of the thing; which, it has been truly said, “was like attempting to have a useful cholera, or a pleasurable small-pox.

The recent war left Pio Nono, in 1860, still in the hands of his troublesome nurses, Louis Napoleon and Francis Joseph, who made him both miserable and contemptible. The dominion of Austria, by its Venetian province, was still contiguous to the States of the Church; and could therefore at any convenient time, cross the Po in succor of the Papal Image of the Beast, should any unforseen event turn up in Paris to give a quietus to the wonder-working of the meddlesome Frogs. These contented themselves with doing garrison duty in Rome, and in parleying with Austria at Zurich; leaving the Pope to do the best he could for himself with the aid of Naples, the Grand Dukes, and the disbanded soldiers sent to Austria as volunteers, and the raggamuffins he could recruit in Ireland, against the Garibaldini and Sardinians. At this crisis, Louis Napoleon confined himself to giving advice, being really not displeased at the renewed activity of the Revolution. On his visit to Bordeaux, he said to the Bishop of that city, “that the Government that was the means of restoring the Holy Father to the Pontifical Throne, would only give utterance to such respectful counsels as were dictated by sincere devotedness to the interests of his Holiness.”

As Garibaldi told his little army in the papal town of Bologna, “the hour of a new struggle approaches. The enemy is threatening, p. 574 and perhaps will attack us before many days are over.” Austria seemed to be delaying the Zurich settlement in hope of something turning up. The Pope was very desirous to recover the Romagna; and the king of the Two Sicilies, and the Duke of Modena, and other foolish princes, “seemed resolved on a pleasant excursion to meet ruin half way.” But, about the middle of the year, a change came over the dream of Austria, weakened by poverty, and held in check by the discontent of Hungary and the Tyrol. She determined therefore to postpone the renewal of the struggle in Italy. Advices were sent to the Pope from Vienna, which entirely cooled his ardor for the fray. The Austrian cabinet discouraged his contemplated attack upon the Romagnas, as, owing to their internal dissensions, they could not profit thereby. Nor could the young king of Naples aid him in a war; for his forces had more than they could do to uphold his authority in his own kingdom. This was being shaken to its foundation. Garibaldi had landed in Sicily, and coöperating with the insurgents, had driven the Neapolitan troops out of the island. Thence, he crossed the Strait into the Peninsula. He defeated the king’s troops, took possession of Naples, and caused the king to shut himself up for safety in the fortress of Gaeta; which, after sustaining a siege by the Piedmontese for a while, he surrendered to the king of Italy.

Such was the course of events, the miracles worked by the unclean Froglike dæmon-spirit that issued forth from the mouth of the Beast, 2400 years after the first year of the sole reign of Cyrus, the Anointed Shepherd of Yahweh (Isai. xliv. 28; xlv. 1; Dan. viii. 14); and, in things connected with Babylon, and his people therein, as his divinely given-name imports, so “Like the Heir.” The first unclean dæmon-spirit from the mouth of the Dragon, had prepared the way in the Conference of Paris of 1856, for the going forth of the second one from the Mouth of the Beast in 1859, which in its wonder-working evolved the situation of 1860. And what do we see at this crisis? We see the Image of the Beast, the Modern Belshatzar and his cardinals, hemmed in by the Revolution; and his nominal dominion reduced to about 750,000 unwilling and disaffected subjects. Tuscany and the Romagna, on the north, lying between the Roman territory and his constitutional protector, the Austrian Beast; and Naples and Sicily on the south, all in the hands of the excommunicated Victor Emmanuel: and the Great political Euphrates, on the east, lying between the Papal Capital in the hands of the Frogs, and Mount Sinai in Arabia, to which the Destroyer of the Roman Antichrist comes, “dried up:” is not this a situation of affairs remarkably significative of the nearness of the manifestation of the Son of Man, p. 575 the antitypical Cyrus; and of the fall of Babylon the Great, the abolition of the Papal Dynasty, and the establishment of the Kingdom of the Heavens?

But, the Frog-Sign in 1860 was not as yet perfected in its second phase. The Beast was still a menace for Italy, and an element of hope to the Roman Prophet: in other words, the military power of Austria had not been sufficiently rolled back for the safety of Italy, and for the reduction of the Sick Man of Rome to the hopelessness of despair. So long as he had hope of cure from Austria, he would not take the physic prescribed by the Frogs. All he wanted of these was that they would drive out the forces of Italy and the Revolution from the Patrimony of St. Peter; restore their estates to his friends, the king of Naples, and the Italian Dukes; and, having taken themselves off to Paris, never to return, leave himself and the aforesaid princes, a happy Italian family, to the constitutional protection of His Apostolic Majesty of Austria. This was all the favor he asked of these dirty Frogs, who, with their revolutionary idées Napolioniennes, and fantastic “civilization based upon legitimate satisfied interests,” came into his house, and into the house of his servants, and upon all the people of his estate—his earnest entreaty to the Virgin, whom he decreed to be immaculate, was, “O Queen of heaven, take away the Frogs from me, and from my people”—Exod. viii. 2-15.

But, it is impossible for this petition to be granted. The plague of the Frogs will cleave to “the great city spiritually called Sodom and Egypt,” until their policy has brought ruin upon it, from which there will be no redemption nor escape.

The quadrennial epoch signalizing the inauguration of “THE TIME OF THE END,” having been completed, the crisis was at length formed for expelling the Beast from Venetia and the Quadrilateral; and thereby relieving Italy of the Austrian menace, and reducing the Pope to still deeper misery and distress. Austria and Prussia had broken into their neighbor Denmark’s house, and stolen a portion of his goods, and like many other robbers, they quarrelled over the division of the spoils. Prussia and Italy being both desirous of aggrandizement at the expense of Austria, entered into an alliance to attack her in Germany and Venetia, in June, 1866. This necessarily divided the forces of Austria, and weakened her on both points. She was signally and grievously defeated by the Prussians at Sadowa; and compelled to draw off her troops from Venetia to reinforce her discomfited hosts in Germany. Not being able to retain her hold upon this province, she ceded it with the Quadrilateral to the Frogs, who had taken no part in the war. These made a virtue of necessity, and promoting the civilization of legitimate satisfied interests, turned p. 576 them all over to their ally the king of Italy; with whom the Frog-emperor had nearly two years before entered into convention, for the evacuation of Rome by the French troops in September, 1866. This arrangement was duly executed, and this remarkable year saw Italy delivered from both French and Austrians; the Pope left to his own resources in the midst of a disaffected people, and face to face with the Revolution and Italian government; and the “legitimate interests” of the Italians unsatisfied. “Rome the capital of Italy” is now the popular cry. It remained to be seen now that the way thither was open and unobstructed by the foreigner, whether the provisions of a convention of doubtful interpretation would restrain the new nation from marching in and taking possession of their own. And here ends the Second Phase of the Frog-Sign, in the year of the cycle allotted to the Image to practise in treading underfoot, 1259.

6. The Third Phase of the Frog-Sign

The third and last phase of the great “sign of the Son of Man in the heaven” is that in which the unclean Frog-like dæmon-spirit goes forth out of the Mouth of the False Prophet. It is worthy of note, that this is the first place in the apocalypse where the phrase “False Prophet” occurs. It is found in two other texts after this, namely, in ch. xix. 20; and xx. 10. In the first of these, his perdition aud the manner of it, are predicted; and in the last, it is a mere reference to his fate.

A prophet, in the New Testament use of the word, is not confined to the idea of one foretelling future events. In the larger sense of the word, a prophet is a spiritual allocutionist; or one who speaks to others with authority upon spiritual subjects. It is therefore equivalent to a teacher who speaks to men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort—1 Cor. xiv. 3. But of teachers or prophets, there are two kinds; the one true; and the other, false. True and false teachers are styled spirits in 1 Jno. iv. 1, who saith, “Beloved, believe not every spirit; but try the spirits whether they be of the Deity; because many false prophets are gone out into the world:” and Peter refers to these in 2 Epist. ii. 1, saying, “there were false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will privily bring in damnable heresies.” “Beware,” said Jesus, “of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits”—Matt. vii. 15: “and many false prophets will arise and deceive many”—ch. xxiv. 11. The rule laid down by John whereby the kind of teacher may be known by his fruits, is thus expressed in 1 Epist. p. 577 iv. 6, “we are of God;” that is, the apostles are the teachers he authorized: “he that knoweth the Deity,” he continues, “heareth us; he that is not of the Deity doth not hear us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.”

Tried then by this rule we know, that the whole clerical hierarchy of “Christendom” so called, are false prophets in the clothing of sheep, animated by the spirit of error, and deceivers of the people. They speak to the edification, exhortation, and comfort of all men, who, through ignorance of the word, are unable to discern between good and evil, the false and the true. But, to those of knowledge, wisdom, and spiritual understanding in the truth, they are an “abomination of the earth;” more especially that section of clerical false prophets, having “the sign of the beast’s Name in their right hand, or in their foreheads” (Apoc. xiii. 16; xiv. 11), and who minister before the worshipers in the Latin service of the Dæmonials. The Chief of this Pseudoprophet Body is the Spiritual Allocutionist, commonly styled the Pope. He is the Mouthpiece of the Beast’s false prophets; the “Holy Father” of their Latinity.

The False Prophet Body is located in all the kingdoms of the Great City, where they make merchandise of the peoples with their sorceries, in pretence of curing their souls. The Mouth of this Body has been, for many dark and gloomy centuries, established in Rome. It is the executive and legislative authority there, which despotically and absolutely administers or controls the spiritual affairs of two hundred millions of worshipers of the two-lamb-horned beast of the earth, and of the Ten Horns. When the first vial began to be poured out, it wielded a temporal power of formidable proportions. The Roman Mouth counted three millions of subjects in its own Church-States; this was its primary dominion—the elective monarchy of the Pope-king. But, besides this first dominion, he had great political authority in all the popish kingdoms of Europe; so that he ruled in Rome like one of the emperors of old. In these high times of tyrannical superstition, the Papal Constitution of things was “the Image” of the Beast’s Sixth Head, that had the wound of the sword, and lived. It was a terrible image of imperial power, sustained by the despotisms of the world, the ignorance of the people, and the infernal Inquisition. But, how is it with this Image in the spring of 1868? What is it now after passing through the scorching, ulcerating, darkening, and tormenting plagues of the vials thus far poured out? It has lost its temporal dominion, which has passed to the Frogs; and the Papacy is a mere “False Prophet,” or spiritual power, with its Mouth in Rome.

But, such a Frog-“civilization” is not based upon “satisfied” p. 578 Italian “interests,” which they deem perfectly “legitimate,” the Convention of September 1864 to the contrary notwithstanding. Since the evacuation of Rome by the Frog-troops, affairs had continued provokingly quiet; and there seemed to be no prospect of the throne of the Italian kingdom being transferred from Florence to the Seven Hills. “Rome the Capital of Italy” was still nothing more than a national cry, which the Convention forbade to be made effectual. The city was garrisoned by several thousands of mercenaries, called the Antibes Legion, made up principally of volunteers from the French army, who had been permitted to serve the Pope, but, at the same time, ordered to remember that they were French soldiers. This was what the Frogs called “evacuation”—a mere substitution of a volunteer for the national force to be paid by the Papal instead of by the French, government. This arrangement made a show of temporal independence and power; and evinced, that the Image still breathed the breath of political life, and could still speak, and cause that as many as would not worship it in its little territory, should be killed (Apoc. xiii. 15). Patriots within the walls did not rise; and false prophets by thousands came from far and near, to celebrate the martyrdom of the popish St. Peter, to witness the creation of new saints, and to pour into the papal treasury the contributions of its strongly deluded worshipers. This was in 1866.

But, glorify themselves as they may, peace will not abide with the wicked. In 1867, the Revolution became impatient. Events did not progress fast enough for the Garibaldini and the Italian Government. Signor Ratazzi, chief minister of State, colleagued with Garibaldi’s friends for an attack upon Rome. These invaded the Roman territory, defeated the Pope’s mercenaries, who retired within the walls, and put the “Holy Father” in great fear. The Frog-Emperor seeing that his power was gone; and that he could no longer defend himself; and that the Italian Government did not protect him, with the greatest dispatch sent a strong force to rescue him from impending ruin. It reached Rome in time to prevent it falling into the hands of the Garibaldini, who were in force at Mentana. Having encamped, they assumed the political and military direction of the city. They then proceeded to empty the prisons choked with the victims of papal tyranny, and to renew the war in the provinces. Six thousand papal mercenaries and French regulars, armed with the newly invented Chassepot rifle, encountered the Garibaldini at Mentana, whom they outnumbered two to one. The unequal conflict was decided against the revolutionists. The French conquered, and the Temporal Power passed into their hands.

The following extracts from Parisian journals show this. “Our p. 579 Chassepot rifles have done wonders,” says L’Opinion National, quoting the words of General Failly in his report of the fight. “It is, therefore, to the Chassepot rifle that the honor of the day at Mentana is due.” Now we know the victor, but who was the vanquished? The vanquished was THE TEMPORAL POWER. The intervention of the French troops at the moment when the victory wavered between the Garibaldians and the Papalians, has proved once more that the Pope-king was incapable of defending himself by his own strength. As the Journal des Debats says, by “sending our troops to the help of that power in distress, we have only furnished its adversaries with fresh arguments to show how impossible it is to restore life to it. Is it not strange, that in order to safeguard him whose anathemas formerly made Europe tremble, it was necessary for modern invention to discover, just in time, the most murderous instrument? This is what the Papacy is now reduced to; it subsists because a rifle has been made which makes wounds larger, and more incurable than the old projectiles.”

“What do we see in Rome?” says the Journal des Debats. “It is no longer the Holy Father or his Ministers, it would appear, who exercise authority there, but a French general.”

“For the sake of truth,” says Il Diritto, “we must confirm the fact, that scarcely had the French arrived than the spirit of terrorism ceased, which the Papal Government had created in the country. The prisons in which three thousand suspected persons groaned are being emptied by order of the French, who have taken the political and military direction of Rome. We took up arms to put the Sovereign Pontiff in a state of command in his States, and yet it seems IT IS WE ALONE who exercise authority there.”

It is then no longer a question of the Pope’s temporal power. He is the SPIRITUAL HEAD of the worshipers of the beast; and will so continue to be until he sinks into the volcanic abyss to come forth no more. His temporal power seems to have gone forever, and, true to its murderous antecedents, in its sanguinary departure, has signalized the last year of the “forty-two months,” or 1260 years, divinely allotted to it to practise and prevail against its enemies. The revolutionary Frogs are in the very “Mouth,” or government, “of the the False Prophet,” so that any spirit henceforth proceeding thence, must be, not only an unclean dæmon-spirit, but also “like to a Frog.” Doubt, then, is at length removed. We may now know that A. D. 607, is the true date of the confirmation of the papal institution by Phocas. The issue is now no longer between Italy and the Temporal Power; but between Italy and the Frogs. “Shall Rome and its territory be, as now, a mere fief, or dependency of the French empire; p. 580 or shall they become part of an united Italy? This is a question pregnant with great trouble to all concerned. M. Rouher, minister of state, has declared that the French government will not allow Rome to become the capital of Italy. This determination they are preparing to support by arms. They are at present engaged in making Civita Vecchia an impregnable fortress for permanent occupation; and in storing up there abundant warlike materiel for whatever troops may choose to diverge thence upon Italian territory.

A letter from Rome in the Correspondence Italienne, says: “Cardinal Antonelli, in his private conversations, expresses firm belief in approaching war. He says, that the great works which the French are executing are by no means intended to shelter Rome from a coup de main of Garibaldi, but to guarantee it against an attack of the regular Italian army. In the war which is preparing, he recently said, the French army will fight alone against Italy, and we shall keep our troops to hold in respect the Roman population. The Cardinal Secretary of State is also said to have remarked, that ‘the Emperor Napoleon has lost all sympathy for Italian Unity ever since the discovery of the secret treaty between Signor Ratazzi and Herr Bismark.’”

My maturest conviction is that “Rome the Capital of Italy,” is a vain cry. Eight recognized forms of government have reigned there since the foundation of the city. The Papacy is the ecclesiastical element of the Eighth Head, which is the last, and goes into perdition with the city. We read of no Ninth Head upon the Seven Mountains. If Italy gained Rome, and removed the throne from Florence thither, it would be the capital of a new form of government, and therefore the Ninth. There may be a struggle between France and Italy to decide the point. The unclean dæmon-spirit about ere long to issue from the Mouth of the False Prophet will enlighten us still further in relation to it. Were the Italians to get the city, they could not retain it long; for apart from the reason, that no ninth form can be constitutionally recognized, is the fact that there is one standing at the door, whose mission it is to destroy the city that it may “be found no more at all”—Apoc, xviii. 21. This will effectually settle all controversy about Rome, and put a quietus upon the Roman Question forevermore.

Such is the manifestation of the third phase of the Frog-Sign as far as it has been displayed to this Feb., 1868. In a short time the last of the 1260 and 1335 years will have expired; at all events, these numbers of years will have elapsed since the issue of Justinian, the Dragon-emperor’s, Decretal Epistle to the Bishop of Rome, A.D. 533, constituting him the Chief Seer, or Prophet, or Spiritual Head of the p. 581 Ecclesiastical Body of the Roman world: and since the confirmation of this appointment by Phocas, A.D. 607, respectively. As we have seen, the three phases of the Frog-Sign have had three successive beginnings, each signalized by a war; the first began in 1853, resulting in the Crimean war; the second, in 1859, in the Italian war; and the third, in 1867, in the invasion of the Roman States. But the Frog-Sign is not yet complete. The prophecy seems to require “a simultaneous going forth” of all the three dæmon-spirits to the kings of the earth and of the whole habitable: to convene them contemporaneously to encounter some great and urgent danger, that threatens, if not overcome, to subvert and destroy all their “legitimate interests.” Among the influences brought into exceedingly prominent activity will doubtless be the Franco-Papal, or the unclean froglike dæmon-spirit that issues from the Mouth of the False Prophet. When the crisis is formed, the Prophet of the Great City will be in high feather, exerting himself in the presence of the Beast, with all the spiritual influence he possesses over the millions of Antichristendom, to induce them to join in the crusade preached, as the grand rally of “the earth and the whole habitable” against the great and pressing terror of the situation.

The “kings of the earth” are the rulers of middle, eastern, and northern Europe; and those of “the whole habitable,” western and southern Europe, with other outlying regions, whose powers are apocalyptically symbolized. But, what is the Great Terror that throws the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet, into such tumultuous alarm, that their several governments should seek to excite the whole world simultaneously to war. The answer to this important question will form the subject of the third part of the prophecy of this Sixth Vial.