The Revelation of Jesus Christ - The Herald

they would predict calamities coming to earth's peoples. The trumpet symbols indicate
that they themselves portray judgments or woes, the seventh of which will be the final
one, and will result in the destruction or overthrow of the entire present order of things
and the ushering in of the new.
We shall endeavor to prove that the period in history when this fifth trumpet began its
fulfillment was about a century after the rise of the Papacy. A very prominent date in
connection with Papacy's rise was 539 AD. It was a little less than a century after this that
an event occurred; fraught with great significance in connection with humanity's affairs.
The period between the rise of Papacy and this event was marked by occurrences that
fulfilled the symbolic vision of the "angel flying in mid-heaven." The destruction of the city
of Rome, the overthrow of Christendom, and indeed the ushering in of the great Judgment
Day, was proclaimed by many of the great nominal preachers. We quote one of the
utterances of the most prominent of all the nominal preachers of that time:
"Our Redeemer desiring to find us ready and restrain us from love of the world, predicted
the evils that are to attend its (the world's) old age, and the calamities that are to
immediately precede its termination, that if we are not inclined to regard Him with awe
and tranquillity, we may at least when His judgment is nigh, feel a fear of being
overwhelmed by His strokes. . . . That earthquakes have overwhelmed numerous cities,
you learn as often as you hear from other quarters of the world. We have pestilences
without cessation. Signs, indeed in the sun and in the moon and in the stars, we have not
yet beheld, but that they are not far distant we may infer from the change that has taken
place in the air. Indeed, before Italy was given up to be smitten by the Gothic sword, we
saw fiery armies battling in the heavens and the blood itself gleaming which was
afterwards shed of the human race. And though no new commotion of the sea has hitherto
arisen, yet as most of the signs foretold are already fulfilled, there is no doubt that the few
that remain are to follow. . . . Moreover, we wish you to know that the end of the present
world is nigh. . . . And as the end of the world approaches many things impend which had
not occurred before, such as changes of the air, terrific appearances in the sky,
unseasonable tempests, wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes, and these signals of the
end of the world precede it, that we may be found solicitous for our souls, looking for the
hour of death, and prepared for the coming Judge."
These words are the utterances of the one who occupied the Papal throne from 590 to 604;
the one who was looked up to as representing the Redeemer Himself, and whose words
were echoed and re-echoed throughout the nominal heavens in those times.
The events symbolized by the fifth, sixth, and seventh trumpets, like those preceding,
cover great periods of time. Indeed all of the trumpets refer to man's doings, except the
seventh, and all but the first two portray the rise and progress of false religious systems
that continue to the full end of the Age. The great preachers of those times (the sixth
century) had so far departed from the true faith that they had lost sight altogether of the
real purpose of this Age--that of the selection and development of the Church. Their