The thoughts just expressed confirm with certainty our interpretation of the "sea" and "rivers and fountains of waters" as signifying those nations which had been the persecutors of the saints, and show, also, the character of the divine judgments as being the shedding of their blood. They had shed the blood of saints and prophets, and now the same cup of wrath was placed to their lips, and they were forced to drink it to the dregs. God remembered the sighs and groans of his faithful followers; the cry of the martyrs for the avenging of their blood on "them that dwell on the earth" reached his ear; and now the time of retribution began.
8. And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.
9. And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.
The sun is the great central luminary of the earth, under whose genial light and warmth everything rejoices and develops in forms of beauty. When, however, a scorching power is given to his rays, the earth becomes as a furnace in which every green thing is burnt up. What the sun is to this world, such are the ruling powers to a kingdom; and power being given them to scorch as with fire denotes that the government would be administered, not for the good of the people, but for the purpose of oppression. A scorching sun, therefore, is a proper symbol of tyrant rulers.
Still keeping in view the object of God in sending these first plagues—the punishment of the nations embraced within the territory of the ten former kingdoms of Europe—we are directed with certainty to the next great scourge that followed as a result of those already developed—the almost universal military empire of Napoleon. The success of three of the four greatest military leaders the world has ever seen—Alexander, Cæsar, and Charlemagne—has been so clearly predicted by inspiration that no believer in the truth of Revelation attempts to deny it; therefore it is not surprising that the fourth—Napoleon—should also be assigned a place in Apocalyptic vision: not so much because of his all-powerful military genius merely, but because of his mighty influence and effects upon the very nations that were especially made the subject of prophecy, as they stand connected with the history of God's people for centuries. At the close of the Revolution the French nation had not virtue nor religion necessary to remedy the evils under which they had long been suffering from the oppression of their monarchs; for when they undertook the work and demolished the throne, they let loose all the wildest elements of wrath to rage without restraint. The nation rejected God, and God rejected the nation. He gave them up to their own madness, to the fury of the most atrocious wickedness that was ever developed under heaven. "From the wild excesses and intolerable calamities of blood-red republicanism, the people were rejoiced at length to find a refuge in a gigantic military despotism, which became the terror and scourge of Europe." But the hand of God was in this thing, also. When the sun scorches the earth with burning heat, it is God that gives it its power. So Napoleon with his iron will and towering genius was only an instrument in God's hand for scourging the guilty nations. In the ordinary sense of the term Napoleon was not a tyrant to his own nation. Still, his government was a despotism to France; while to the Apocalyptic earth, or the ten kingdoms, he was a scorching sun, for his empire extended over the whole. It finally became a saying that "if Napoleon's cocked hat and gray coat should be raised on the cliffs of Boulogne, all Europe would run to arms." This agrees with the statement of the historian Judson, concerning the monarchs of Europe, that "the mere name of Napoleon was a dread to them." None of them could stand before his terrible onset. "Europe was shaken from end to end by such armies as the world had not seen since the days of Xerxes. Napoleon, whose hands were upheld by a score of distinguished marshals, performed the miracles of genius. His brilliant achievements still dazzle, while they amaze, the world." The crowns and scepters of Europe he held as play-things in his hand, to dispose of at pleasure. Says Wickes: "Never in the history of Christendom were ancient dynasties overthrown, and new ones created, kings made and unmade, within so short a period, as during the unparallelled career of this great conqueror. He had the crowns and kingdoms of all Europe in his gift, to settle as he pleased, or bestow as presents upon his relatives and friends. To his brother Jerome he gave the crown of Westphalia; to his brother Louis, the crown of Holland; to his brother Joseph, the kingdom of Spain; to his brother-in-law and general Murat, the kingdom of Naples; and others he conferred upon his favorite marshals."
When he invaded Russia, a territory outside of the Apocalyptic earth, he exceeded his mission, and there met with the most terrible overthrow. Although he entered that kingdom with the most magnificent army that he had ever gathered together, yet for suffering and disaster that famous retreat from burning Moscow stands without a parallel in history. It was not the Russian armies that prevailed against him; it was God that fought against him with the blasts of his north wind. These speedily silenced those tremendous parks of artillery that had thundered upon the fields of Jena, Friedland, Wagram, Marengo and Austerlitz, and scattered those invincible battalions that had marched triumphant over Europe. Ney, at the head of the National Guards, ever before victorious, was compelled to beat a hasty retreat, glad to escape with the smallest remnant of his host. Napoleon failed here because God had given him no mission to perform in that territory.
Concerning his ambition, the Encyclopædia Britannica says: "With a frame of iron, Napoleon could endure any hardships; and in war, in artillery especially and engineering, he stands unrivalled in the world's history.... He could not rest, and knew not when he had achieved success.... He succeeded in alienating the peoples of Europe, in whose behalf he pretended to be acting. And when they learned by bitter experience that he had absolutely no love for liberty, and encouraged equality only so long as it was an equality of subjects under his rule, they soon began to war against what was in fact a world-destroying military despotism." He was inspired with the most unbounded ambition, which was nothing short of despotism over all Europe, if not the world. Universal empire was his grand object, or, as it has been expressed by historians, a desire to concentrate "the world in Europe—Europe in France—France in Paris—Paris in himself." Says Wickes: "The empire which he actually reared in Europe was a vast, oppressive, centralized despotism.... To build it up, he desolated France through his terrible conscriptions, requiring the whole strength and flower of the nation to supply his armies. It is stated that after the wars of Napoleon there were three times the number of women in France that there were of men. The fathers, the husbands, the sons, the brothers, had fallen upon the battle-field, and thus desolated almost every household in the kingdom. Similar desolation also he carried by his wars into the other kingdoms."
The dread of Napoleon settled down upon all the nations of Europe. They could not cope with his mighty genius, and therefore his presence was a terror to them. When the allied powers secured his first abdication, in 1814, and sent him to the island of Elba, the desolating results of his long career were shown in the work that the Congress of Vienna was called upon to perform when it assembled in the fall of 1814. While the representatives of the powers were laboring to repair the damage that had been wrought and to adjust the territorial limitations of the various nations that had been altered or entirely demolished, the assemblage was suddenly surprised the following spring by the news that Napoleon had escaped from Elba and was enroute to Paris. The terror and consternation in Europe then experienced is shown by the following quotation from Sir James Mackintosh, a man of high reputation as a jurist, as a historian, and as a far-sighted and candid statesman:
"Was it in the power of language to describe the evil! Wars which had raged for more than twenty years throughout Europe, which had spread blood and desolation from Cadiz to Moscow, and from Naples to Copenhagen; which had wasted the means of human enjoyment, and destroyed the instruments of social improvement; which threatened to diffuse among the European nations the dissolute and ferocious habits of a predatory soldiery ... had been brought to a close.... Europe seemed to breathe after her sufferings. In the midst of this fair prospect and of these consolatory hopes, Napoleon Bonaparte escaped from Elba; three small vessels reached the coast of Provence; their hopes are instantly dispelled; the work of our toil and fortitude is undone: the blood of Europe is spilled in vain."
The bitterest ingredients in the cup of these nations was the humiliating overthrow of their own government and their subjection to the hated republican despotism of France. It was a scorching sun that they could not endure. Still, they repented not to give God glory; they continued as before. After Napoleon had accomplished the purpose for which he was intended, God permitted this stupendous genius to be subdued; but it required the combined powers of Europe to secure his downfall.