The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 4

IV. The “Turk” One of Litch’s Favorite Subjects

Josiah Litch discussed the fifth and sixth trumpets of Revelation 9-a typical emphasis at the time, particularly for him. The “fallen Star” was Mohammed, and the symbolic “locusts” the Moslem hordes of horsemen. The “five months” of tormenting are 150 years—“each year a full solar year”—the period of Turkish torment of the Greeks. The “king” over them was Othman, who, near the close of the thirteenth century, founded the Ottoman government, or empire. (This had all, of course, been previously presented again and again by others.) His name meant the “destroyer.” And then, according to Gibbon, he entered Nicomedia on July 27, 1299. One hundred fifty years would therefore reach to 1449, he figured, during which time the Turks warred against the Greeks, but without conquering them. PFF4 587.2

The sixth trumpet was to remove the restraints, and to loose the “angels” bound in the river Euphrates, said Litch. In 1449 Paleologus, the last Greek emperor, died, and Greek independence was surrendered into the hands of the Turks. The symbolic “hour, day, month, and year,” or widely acknowledged “391 years and fifteen days,” would therefore end, Litch held, in August, 1840, when “the Sultan would voluntarily surrender his independence into the hands of the Christian powers, from whom he received it.” Litch then submitted a series of supporting historical statements, appearing in the London Morning Herald, Christian Advocate and Journal, Moniteur Ottoman, and London Morning Chronicle, maintaining, in brief, that the ultimatum of the powers was put into the hand of Mehemet Ali about the eleventh of August. PFF4 587.3

Then he pressed on the next event-Behold the third woe cometh quickly, when the mystery of God is to be finished, and the kingdoms of this world are to become the kingdoms of our Lord, who is to reign forever and ever. This cannot be afar off, he solemnly declared. The address carried conviction, and persuaded many a skeptic, deist, and infidel. PFF4 588.1