Appendix
581
during the century and a half after the death of Mohammed, upon the
Eastern Roman Empire. Throughout the Reformation era, Turkey was
a continual threat at the Eastern gates of European Christendom; the
writings of the Reformers are full of condemnation of the Ottoman
power. Christian writers since have been concerned with the role of
Turkey in future world events, and commentators on prophecy have
seen Turkish power and its decline forecast in Scripture.
For the latter chapter, under the “hour, day, month, year” prophecy,
as part of the sixth trumpet, Josiah Litch worked out an application
of the time prophecy, terminating Turkish independence in August,
1840. Litch’s view can be found in full in his The Probability of
the Second Coming of Christ about A.D. 1843 (published in June,
1838); An Address to the Clergy (published in the spring of 1840;
a second edition, with historical data in support of the accuracy of
former calculations of the prophetic period extending to the fall of the
Ottoman Empire, was published in 1841); and an article in
Signs of the
Times and Expositor of Prophecy, August 1, 1840
. See also article in
The Signs of the Times and Expositor of Prophecy, February 1, 1841
;
and J. N. Loughborough, The Great Second Advent Movement (1905
ed.), pp. 129-132. The book by Uriah Smith, Thoughts on Daniel and
the Revelation, rev. ed. off 1944, discusses the prophetic timing of this
prophecy on pages 506-517.
For the earlier history of the Ottoman Empire and the decline of
the Turkish power, see also William Miller, The Ottoman Empire and
Its Successors, 1801-1927 (Cambridge, England: University Press,
1936); George G. S. L. Eversley, The Turkish Empire from 1288
to 1914 (London : T. Fisher Unwin, Ltd., 2d ed., 1923); Joseph
von Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmannischen Reiches (Pesth:
C. A. Hartleben, 2d ed., 1834-36), 4 vols.; Herbert A. Gibbons,
Foundation of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1403 (Oxford: University
Press, 1916); Arnold J. Toynbee and Kenneth B. Kirkwood, Turkey
(London, 1926).
Page 340. Withholding the Bible From the People.—The reader
will recognize that the text of this volume was written prior to Vatican
Council II, with its somewhat altered policies in regard to the reading
of the Scriptures.
Through the centuries, the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church
toward circulation of the Holy Scriptures in vernacular versions among