burning, saying, What city is like the great city? And they cast dust on their heads, and cried out, weeping and mourning, saying, Woe! woe! the great city by which all who had ships on the sea, were made rich through her precious merchandise! for in one hour she is desolated.” Rev. 18:9-20. “Rejoice over her, O heaven, and ye saints and apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her!” Rev. 18:20. “And a strong angel took up a stone like a great mill-stone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus violently, will Babylon, the great city, be cast down, and be no more at all. And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and pipers, and trumpeters, will be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of any art, will be found any more in thee; and the sound of a mill-stone will be heard no more at all in thee; and the light of a lamp will shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and the bride will be heard no more at all in thee; for thy merchants were the nobles of the earth; for by thy sorcery all nations were deceived. And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all those slain on the earth.” Rev. 18:21-24. The punishment of Babylon is proportioned to her wickedness, and is to be inflicted partially by the kings of the earth, and partially by other agencies. The kings were to hate, and burn her with fire, (17:16); and were also, when they should see the smoke of her burnings, to bewail and lament for her, 18:9. The former passage indicates their agency in her impoverishment, and has been fulfilled in the confiscation of her property in France and England, the spoliation of churches and religious houses, wherever the arms of Napoleon extended; the dethronement of the Pope, by Gen. Berthier, in 1798; the refusal of some of the powers to permit her to nominate, within their limits, the candidates for ecclesiastical preferment, &c. She is thus made to feel her widowhood,—her divorce from the secular arm,—and has mourned the loss of her most devoted children, who have forsaken her communion.