Last Updated on : Saturday, November 22, 2014 |
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Eureka AN EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE |
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Chapter 9 Section 4 Subsection 7 "With the Heads They Do Injure" |
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But what he saw and smelt were not mere holiday salutes. He
saw and smelt them in the battles which extinguished the political
existence of "the third" -- to triton. There were
not only color and smell, but death also, in "the fire,
and the smoke, and the sulphur;" for "by these three," saith
he: "were killed the third of the men by the fire, and
by the smoke, and by the sulphur bursting forth out of their
mouths. And the reason given for the deadliness of these three
agents in combination, when bursting forth from the mouths
of the lion-headed horses, or artillery, is "because
their powers are in their mouths and in their tails." A
cannon, in modern style, is divided into breech, barrel, and
mouth. The Spirit only indicates the mouth and the breech,
which he terms the tail, which is an appendage thereto. These "tails" were "like
serpents," in the similitude of their destructive operation;
for the tails were not headless. Had they been headless tails,
they could have done no injury; no more than a serpent without
a head. When a serpent injures, it coils, and making a fulcrum
of its tail, shoots forth its head from amid the coils, which
are straightened by the spring, and with its head strikes
its victim with a deadly stroke. Hence, the death-dealing
powers of the serpent are in its head, or mouth, and in its
tail. So it is with flying artillery, and with artillery mounted
on breastworks, compared herein to "serpents." Without
the tail of the piece the mouth thereof could not injure;
and without the mouth, or outlet, the tail could do no harm.
As in the natural, "the powers" of these artillery
serpents "are in their mouths and in their tails." The
projecting power is in the tail of the piece; many pieces,
therefore, in our time, being "breech-loading." But
until of late, the projecting power and the projectile were
always mouth, or muzzle-loaded -- they went through the mouth
into the tail; and being well rammed, they spring or shoot
forth with the voice of a lion, straightening themselves from
tail to mouth, out of which they rush in "fire, smoke,
and sulphur," dealing death and destruction upon what
things soever may be encountered by their "head," their
tail-heads, or cannon balls; "for their tails have heads,
and with these do they injure." Thus, "by the fire,
and by the smoke, and by the sulphur," as an exploding
power projecting the tail-heads, were "the third of the
men killed." The scorpions of the first woe were highly
incendiary; but they did not make breaches in walls, and overturn
lofty towers: the serpents of the second woe did all this;
and in opening breaches by their tail-heads, gave admission
to the fourth Euphratean angel-power into the capital of the
Eastern Third, where he has been enthroned upwards of four
hundred years, the observed of all observers; some of whom
long for his decease, that they may be enriched by the division
of his estate.
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