“And they had _a king_ over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon [margin, a destroyer].” Verse 11. NOTES.—For hundreds of years the Mohammedans and invading Tartar tribes, like the locusts (Prov. 30:27), had no general government or king over them, but were divided into bands, or factions, under separate leaders. But in the twelfth century Temuljin, king of the Mongols, or Moguls, who is described as “the most terrible scourge that ever afflicted the human race,” built up an empire “at the cost,” it is estimated, says Myers in his “General History,” page 461, of “fifty thousand cities and towns and five million lives.” This was followed by the more permanent Tartar empire founded by Othman a century later, commonly known as the Ottoman Empire, and ruled by the sultan. From the first, the great characteristic of the Turkish government has been that of a “destroyer.” Speaking of a war by the Turks upon the Byzantine Empire in 1050, Gibbon (chapter 57) says: “The myriads of Turkish horse overspread a frontier of six hundred miles from Tauris to Erzeroum, and the blood of one hundred and thirty thousand Christians was a grateful sacrifice to the Arabian prophet.” In 1058 the Turks wrested the Holy Land from the Saracens, desecrated the holy places, and treated the pilgrims to Jerusalem with cruelty. This brought on the nine unsuccessful crusades of the next two centuries for the recovery of the Holy Land. 12. What definite period is mentioned under this trumpet? “And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men _five months_.” Verse 10. See also verse 5. NOTES.—“It was on the twenty-seventh of July, in the year 1299,” says Gibbon, “that Othman first invaded the territory of Nicomedia,” in Asia Minor, “and the singular accuracy of the date,” he adds, “seems to disclose some foresight of the rapid and destructive growth of the monster.”—_“__Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,__”__ chap. 64, par. 14_ This, then, we take to be the beginning of the period referred to. A Bible month consists of thirty days; five months would be 150 days. Allowing a day for a year, 150 years from July 27, 1299, would reach to July 27, 1449. During this period the Turks were engaged in almost constant warfare with the Greek Empire, and yet without conquering it. 13. With what statement does the fifth trumpet close? “One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.” Verse 12. 14. What command is given under the sixth trumpet?