the care and foresight of emperors and their ministers to anticipate the
scourge. The Pharaohs on the throne had no Joseph to lay up in store in
the "years of plenty." But when our New Testament Joseph would thus
fight against the persecutors of his saints by the judgment of famine;
he gave previous intimation 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.