Amurath II was succeeded, A.D. 1451, by his son Mohammed II, styled by Gibbon, "the Great Destroyer." His passions were at once furious and inexorable. In the palace, as in the field, a torrent of blood was spilt on the slightest provocation. Constantinople has sealed his glory, and placed him among "the basest of men" whom the Eternal Spirit "sets up" to fulfil his will. Under his command the Ottoman "myriads" were always more numerous than their enemies; "yet," says the historian, "their progress was bounded by the Euphrates and the Adriatic."

Mohammed II, though the proudest of men, could stoop from ambition to the basest arts of dissimulation and deceit. Peace was on his lips, while war was in his heart; and he incessantly sighed for the possession of Constantinople. The indiscretion of the Greeks afforded the first pretence of a fatal rupture. Instead of laboring to be forgotten, they continually annoyed him with their demands, until patience being exhausted, his vizir addressed them in the following strain: "Ye foolish and miserable Romans, we know your devices; and ye are ignorant of your own danger. The scrupulous Amurath is no more; his throne is occupied by a young conqueror, whom no laws can bind and no obstacles can resist; and, if you escape from his hands, give praise to the divine clemency which yet delays the chastisement of your sins. Why do you seek to affright us by vain and indirect menaces? Release the fugitive, Orchan; crown him sultan of Romania; call the Hungarians from beyond the Danube; arm against us the nations of the west; and be assured that you will only provoke and precipitate your ruin."

Hostile in mind, Mohammed proceeded to build a fortress on the Bosphorus, about five miles from the city, to command the strait and close the Black Sea. This was, in effect, commencing the siege. He began this work A.D. 1452, which he pressed and directed with indefatigable ardor, and quickening the diligence of the workmen with the eye of a despot, whose smile was the hope of fortune, and his frown the messenger of death. In vain did Constantine, the last of the Greek emperors of the Dragon power, try to divert him from the work. The sultan was implacable, and listened with joy to all complaints, which only afforded him occasions for treachery and violence. At length the gates of the city were closed, and a last message forwarded to the sultan: "Since neither oaths, nor treaty, nor submission, can secure peace, pursue," said the emperor, "your impious warfare. My trust is in God alone: if it should please him to mollify your heart, I shall rejoice in the happy change; if he delivers the city into your hands, I submit without a murmur to his holy will. But, until the Judge of the earth shall pronounce between us, it is my duty to live and die in the defence of my people." Constantine did not know, and there was no one able to show him, that the Judge of the earth had recorded the decree against him over thirteen hundred and fifty years, and that that decree was death to "the third" of which he was the imperial head. The sultan’s answer was hostile and decisive; and, having finished his fortress, he prepared to besiege the city in the ensuing spring of A.D. 1453.

The conquest of the City of Caesar seemed to haunt him day and night. About the second watch, he started from his bed, and commanded the instant attendance of his prime vizir. This secret friend of the idolators, surnamed Gabour Ortachi, or foster-brother of the infidels, alarmed at the summons, hastened. with a guilty conscience to the palace with a slight tribute of gold. "It is not my wish," said the sultan, "to resume my gifts, but rather to heap and multiply them upon thy head. In my turn, I ask a present far more valuable and important -- CONSTANTINOPLE." As soon as the vizir had recovered from his surprise, "The same God," said he, "who has already given thee so large a portion of the Roman empire, will not deny the remnant and the capital. His providence and thy power assure thy success; and myself, with the rest, of thy faithful slaves, will sacrifice our lives and fortunes." "Lala," continued the Sultan, "do you see this pillow? All the night, in my agitation, I have pulled it on one side and on the other; I have risen from my bed; again have I lain down, yet sleep has not visited these weary eyes. Beware of the gold and silver of the Romans. In arms we are superior; and, with the aid of God, and the prayers of the prophet, we shall speedily become masters of Constantinople."

His artillery surpassed whatever had yet appeared in the world. "Am I," said the sultan to a founder of cannon, who had deserted from the Greeks, "able to cast a cannon capable of throwing a ball or stone of sufficient size to batter the walls of Constantinople?" "I am not ignorant of their strength," replied the artist; "but were they more solid than those of Babylon, I could oppose an engine of superior power: the position and management of that engine must be left to your engineers." At the end of three months, Urban produced a piece of brass ordnance of stupendous and almost incredible magnitude, capable of projecting a stone bullet weighing six hundred pounds. The explosion was felt or heard in a circuit of a hundred furlongs; the ball, by the force of gunpowder -- "the fire, the smoke, and the sulphur" -- was driven above a mile; and, on the spot where it fell, it buried itself a fathom deep in the ground. For the conveyance of this destructive engine, a carriage-frame of thirty waggons, linked together, was drawn by a team of sixty oxen; two hundred men on both sides were stationed to poise or support the rolling weight; two hundred and fifty pioneers marched before to smooth the way and repair the bridges; and near two months were employed in transporting it one hundred and fifty miles.

In the beginning of the spring, the Turkish vanguard swept the towns and villages as far as the gates of the capital: all who submitted were spared and protected; whatever presumed to resist was exterminated with fire and sword. The whole mass of the Turkish "myriads" are estimated at two hundred and fifty-eight thousand. Constantinople was still peopled with more than a hundred thousand inhabitants; but, of all these, only four thousand nine hundred and seventy were found able and willing to defend the city. These were increased by two thousand foreigners, under John Justiniani, a Genoese. These seven or eight thousand soldiers were all that could be mustered to defend Constantinople, a city of thirteen or sixteen miles circuit, against the fourth angel-power, to which Europe and Asia were open, but closed against the Greeks.

The siege began April 6, A.D. 1453, and lasted fifty-three days. The Propontis and the Harbor protected it on two sides, while the land side was defended by a double wall, and a ditch one hundred feet deep and four English miles in length. Against this the fourth angel-power directed its chief attack. "The incessant volleys of lances and arrows were accompanied," says Gibbon, "with the smoke, and the sound, and the fire, of musketry and cannon. Their small arms discharged at the same time either five or even ten, balls of lead, of the size of a walnut; and, according to the closeness of the ranks and the force of the powder, several breastplates and bodies were transpierced by the same shot." This is quite apocalyptic. John, in vision, saw this described by Gibbon. John also speaks of "the smoke," and "the fire," and "the sound," or "bursting forth" roaringly; for "the horses had heads of lions, and out of their mouths burst forth fire, and smoke, and sulphur." Gibbon likewise calls our attention to the breasts of them who handled "the horses of the vision," or "sat upon them," in speaking of the musketry as well as the cannon. He connects the smoke, and the fire, and the sound, with their breasts, in speaking of their musketry; for it need not be proved that, in a line of musketry discharging its pieces, a breastline or work of small arms is presented to the observer, which, in activity, are, as John says, fiery, and hyacinthine, and sulphurous breasts." Gibbon also calls our attention to the apocalyptic "heads." "They had heads" says John, "and with them they do hurt." A dull, stupid, round-headed fellow is often styled a bullet-head. The Spirit termed balls and bullets in the vision "heads," hissing like serpents from the lion-mouths of the pieces; and as Gibbon says, illustratively of the "hurt," that "they transpierced breastplates and bodies" of the Daemonial Virgin’s troops, the idolatrous Greeks. Lastly, Gibbon is particular to explain to us what John terms "their powers." Projectiles were not new things at this siege; but the powers by which they were made to hurt were new. He says it was by "the force of the powder" that the bullet-heads, or shot, transpierced the bodies. Here were two powers or forces -- the force of the powder, and the force of the shot; the one the propelling power, and the other the striking power; and both these powers, Gibbon says, were in the musketry and the cannon; and John says the same thing in other words: "their powers," says he, "are in their mouths and in their tails; FOR their tails are like to serpents, having heads, and with them (the heads) they do hurt." The serpent hiss of these heads is distinctly heard while they are whizzing through the air in their course from the mouth of the piece to their destination.

Now, if Gibbon was so particular to narrate these details to his contemporaries, who were as familiar with them in every day practice as himself, need we wonder that the Spirit should give them great prominence in the vision? Gibbon could no more dispense with his dissertation on gunpowder, musketry, and cannon, in treating of the fall of the Roman empire, than could the Spirit in representing the same event. And for this reason: what Gibbon styles "the new engines of attack" were the instrumental cause of that fall; and it was the indispensable duty of an accurate and faithful historian to dwell upon the remarkable fact, that Constantinople was the chief city taken, and the Roman the first empire subverted by the smoke, and the sound, and the fire, and the balls, of musketry and cannon. This testimony of history is in harmony with the testimony of the Omniscient Spirit, who, "by his servant John," says: "By these three was the third of the men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the sulphur, which burst forth of out their mouths." If it had not been for this "force of powder," "the third of the men" would not have been killed at the time appointed -- the end of "the hour and day and month and year." By the aid of "the powers" of powder and shot, it took the Ottoman angel-power fifty-three days to take the city and overthrow the empire, so as to execute the work in the appointed limit; but without these it would have taken a much longer time, or have resulted in failure as before. The third of the men, then, was emphatically "killed" by gunpowder -- "by the fire, by the smoke, and by the sulphur bursting forth out of" the cannons’ "mouths;" for, without this "force of powder," shot, cannon, and musketry, would have been perfectly harmless. Such is the strict accord between prophecy and history. Hence, "the vision is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure."

"The great cannon of Mohammed," says Gibbon, "has been separately noticed -- an important and visible object in the history of the times; but that enormous engine was flanked by two fellows almost of equal magnitude. The long order of the Turkish artillery was pointed against the walls; fourteen batteries thundered at once on the most accessible places; and of one of these it is ambiguously expressed, that it was mounted with one hundred and fifty guns, or that it discharged one hundred and fifty bullets, or "heads." The great cannon could only be loaded and fired seven times in one day and at length burst, destroying several engaged in working it.

The resistance of the idolators was so obstinate and surprising that the perserverance of Mohammed was fatigued, and he began to meditate a retreat. The reduction of the city appeared to be hopeless, unless a double attack could be made from the harbor as well as from the land. This he at length effected. He constructed a floating battery, upon which he planted one of his largest cannon. The fire of the Greeks was controlled and silenced by the superior fire of the Turks; and, after a siege of forty days, the fate of Constantinople could no longer be averted. The fortifications, which had stood for ages against hostile violence, were dismantled on all sides by the Ottoman cannon; many breaches were opened, and four towers had been levelled with the ground. The crisis for the assault had arrived; but, wishing to spare the blood of his soldiers, he invited the worshippers of canonized immortal souls and idols to submission with circumcision or tribute; but if they preferred still to resist, death was to be their fate. It was heaven’s decree that they should be killed. The emperor of the Greeks determined to abide the last extremities of war. Several days were employed in preparations for the assault; but singularly enough, Mohammed did not trust himself to appoint the day when it should be made. He had recourse to his favorite science of astrology, that it might fix for him the day. He thus surrendered himself to "fate;" and that fate had already decreed that the Roman Empire of the East should fall at the end of 391 years and 30 days. However he might arrive at the conclusion by the principles of his science, I am not astrologer enough to tell. I doubt not but that, as in the case of Saul and the witch of Endor, the Spirit made use of his infatuation to determine him to do at the right moment what he had, over thirteen centuries before, marked out for the fourth Euphratean angel-power to accomplish. Be this as it may, Mohammed’s astrology ordered him to make the assault on the twenty-ninth of May, as the fortunate and fatal day.

All was depression and abject superstition within the city. The "celestial image of the Virgin" was paraded in solemn procession; but their divine patroness" was deaf to their entreaties. This, their daemonialism and idolatry, had brought upon them the calamities they endured. The shouts of the myriads without their walls proclaimed the truth by which they were condemned -- "God is God! there is but one God!" and this one God it was, who, by all the four Euphratean angel-powers, was vindicating his Unity against the more than pagan multitude of the gods and goddesses of the catholic aerial. The morning of May 29, 1453, at length dawned. The myriads pressed forward to the breach, while the Ottoman artillery thundered from all sides; and the camp and city, the Greeks and the Turks, were involved in a cloud of smoke, which could only be dispelled by the deliverance or destruction of the Roman empire. The Turks were a hundred times more numerous than the idolators. The double walls were -reduced by cannon to a heap of ruins; and their valiant emperor had fallen in the fight, and lay buried under a mountain of the slain. After his death, resistance and order vanished; the Greeks fled towards the city; and, in the heat of the pursuit, two thousand worshippers of the Virgin fell beneath the scymitars of the victorious Turks; and, thenceforth Constantinople became the capital of the Fourth Euphratean angel-power. Thus was killed the Eastern Roman Third of the men, at the full end of "the hour, and day, and month and year," or 391 years and 30 days from the perfected preparation of the first angel-power.