Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1854-06-03
NEW BOOKS.

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The Apocalypse Of St. john like the bow Of Ulysses has
served to exercise the gor Of apants for fame or favor
and in justice Dr. Cumming it must be admitted that
his efforts in this most hopeless range Of hermsneutes
have been quite successful those any Of his
deeessors We suspect however, that the master-hand
has not yet appeared.
The learned Scaliger pays just compliment to the
good evinced BY Calvin in eschewne the quicksand
surrounding .hcse darksoms Visions Calpus sopu qa
mon scrips Apocalpsis And indeed the intense and
exclusive contemplation OF such topics the Antchrist
the man Of SIM the beast with horns and the beast
with ten horns the armies Of Cog and Magog the fall Of
Babylon, and the advent of the millennium has but too
often tended to delude the imagination with false and
ridiculous perceptfsns and reduced tie most powerful
minds to the imbecility Of childhood A melancholy
proof OF this weakness we have in the great Sir Isaac
Newton To him nature seems to have unlocked her
choicest secret but did he direct his telescope
from the motions of the heavenly bodies to the visions in
the apocalypse than his head grew dizzy the tales Of
the nursery danced before and he hazarde pre-
dctons which, in the scale Of prophecy have cassed
him even below the inspired of nineteenth cen
fury. In the year 1889 the Rev. Dr. Cook Greek Pro-
lessor in the University of Cambridge published trans
aon of the Apocalypse, with keys open its meaning
In his opinion il constitutes drama the plan of the
Gdpus URANUS, opening with the temple The
seals, the trumpets, and the yas unfold the plot and
though the Antchrist like Gapus survives yet ne falls
into such calamtes justify the lamentations pro.
nounoed on his downfall. s.sg
Tothis scholar succeeded Granville Sharp, gentle
man sDguary partial to monosyllables who has written
volume on the Hebrew letter vaa and another the
Greek article ho he He convinced himself that the
Hebrew monosylable lat sgnfying to conceal, is the
root Of 1atsinos, word, by the way, which occurs in
authors and that this word by the convenient insertion
of the letter e, computes the number Of the beast.
Next appears Mr.. Galloway With him the beast of !
the bottoless pit France the little horn was France
the man of sin France, and Antchrst France.
The beast he tells u.s. is revolutionary Franco, because
the beast sprang from the earth which is rer stationary
planet. In his paroxysms Mr.. Galloway appears unable
to distinguish between pun and syllogism
Messrs. Kett and Bicheno next pass in review. Mr..
kett has employed the prophet in writing detailed his
tory of England and of its liberation from thradom by
the glorious revolution of 1885, while Mr. Bicheno has
transferred the labors Of the prophet Germany, and
has added the discovery that the present generation
80 forunatos minimum 81 bona n8rint-'
do actually enjoy the Long promised millennium of peace
virtue, and happiness.
Mr. Whitaker and mr. Faber bring. up the rear, and
among other important revelations give the pleasing
intelligence that both Turk and Pope will expire in the
year 1868.
Unfortunately for these two prophets each disputed the
accuracy of his rivals predictions and the controversy
which followed convinced the minds of heir readers that
each had completely succeeded in demoishing the system
of his adversary and completely failed in establishing
his own
Later still we have, in 1858, pamphlet g The
Coming Struggle of the Nations of the Earth describing
the political events of the fifteen years. in accord
ance with the prophecies of Ezekiel, Daniel and the
Apocalypse.
The pious author laments the of dyines
who, in attempting premature Interpretation of the
prophecies, have by glosses produced
Of obscurity contradiction and absurdity serving
petey to mystfy both themselves and their readers
Austria stands convicted the wo-horned beast and
in company with France, Turkey and Rome, is doomed
to perdton. The two witnesses, which are civil and
religious democracy" (avaunt ye Whigsy being slain
under Louis the 14h revived in 1885, and appeared in
the person Of Napoleon the LIST England is to be alto
gether exempt from the warike fray which Russia and
the nations of Europe nyoved and to that favored
isle is assigned the pleasing task Of advancing in unruf
fled tranquility the religious moral and social progress
Of the world But when the northern Aatocrat in his
march to her eastern possessions shall have reached the
hill Of Zion his way she will buckle her and
send cry the Atlantic, Come and help u.s.;
to which endearng appeal brother Jonathan will proba-
bly, answer, " am coming, my honey, as our
six frigates are launched
Some discrepancies, it is true and somewhat irrecon-
cable have already appeared between these predo
tons and the present attitude of Great Britain which
discrepancies respectfully submitted to the enghten
ed orators of Exeter Hall. e8s
In conclusion, we think it may be reasonably doubted
that ST. John retired to in the Isle Of Patmos
with the view to write out prophetic history of England
to describe the sangunary yagares of red republicans
during the feversh existence of the French Republic.
Without pretending to unravel the tissue of the mystic
web would point the attention of the decpherer of
apocayptc symbols to the solemn reservations of the
beloved evangelsrepeated both in the first and the last
his predictions the of being
fulfilled while he yet penning them In the catas-
trphe of jerusalem in the records Of the first period Of
the unbiased searcher may mbibe draughts
of inspirations not from the muddy pools Of bgotry but
from the pure Of historic truth In the contem
pation of those early ages the investigator Of prophecy
may perhaps stumble the only clue which can lead to
the solution of difficulties embodied in these mysterious
Revelations
AsspAcH, A. NJ. Philadelphia, Lindsay s. Bakiston.
The reverend author has been prompted to the compo
son Of these moral homilies by contemplating the
elect and desecaton Of the cemeteries Of the departed
and also BY the praiseworhy motive Of mnisering to the
Affections Of the bereaycd survivors and exerng his best
efforts to improve their temporal pryations into perma
uent spiritual good The dedication, kindly SO CRATE
Il. + yu#