is here employed to represent the judgment to be inflicted. The
principal agents and events are,--a "star, locusts, Apollyon their king,
their depredations, the time of their continuance."

Neither Boniface III. nor Mahomet answers to the symbol "falling star."
Allowing that a star, as a symbol, may represent a person in either
civil or ecclesiastical office, no successful aspirants to places of
power, as both of these were, can be here understood. Obviously
degradation and not elevation is intended. Either dethronement of a
prince or apostacy of a theological dignitary must be intended.

No character in history at the time referred to, so well agrees to the
symbol of a fallen star as the monk Sergius, who is known to have been
the coadjutor of Mahomet. He had been a monk of the Christian sect
called Nestorians from Nestorius their leader. This monk Sergius had
been excommunicated for heresy and immorality. He was glad to serve the
devil as dictator to Mahomet in composing the Koran, which bears
internal evidence of having been written by one who was acquainted with
the Sacred Scriptures. When this degraded man had finished his task, he
was put to death by his master, lest he should betray the imposture.

He opened the bottomless pit, from which issued a smoke darkening the
whole face of the heavens. The pit is hell, whence came the smoke,--the
diabolical system of delusion. From the same place comes the character
afterwards to appear under the aspect of a beast, (ch. xi. 7.) Locusts
constituted one of the plagues of Egypt, and they are the emblem of a
destroying army. (Exod. x. 14-19; Joel i. 4-6.) And this is their import
here. They represent the deluded and destructive followers of Mahomet,
who in vast multitudes laid waste the nations of western Asia, southern
Europe, and northern Africa. The Saracens, originating in Arabia, the