Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-10-12
WHAT ST. JOHN SAW.
The New Heaven and New Earth
Where There Was No More Sea.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE OMISSION.
The Devout Exile on Patmos Probably Re-
ferred to Separation.
A MODERN BOOK OF REVELATION

| we can lnto looKlng-glass. Wnst VIC BOG
there is mainly a reflection of our past expe-
riences. And, no doubt, it is best that 1t
should be so. Still, we like to look ahead,
and wonder. On and on goes the path, and
then cloud comes down over it and hides
the rest of it. Where does the path 60 tor
We get but dim answer to that question;
still, we keep on asking it And If we an
swer it ourselves, as most of us do in one
way or another, and if our answer makes
out the future to be worthier than the past
looking ahead is a wise thing in that case.
1t sets the ideal beside the real, and that al
ways helps.
What of the future? That has always in
terested people. Prophets have always
found listeners. Descriptions of ideal
worlds have always found readers Mr..
Bellamy's Looking Backward" which is
really long look forward, sells to-day by
the hundred thousand.
A STRIKING COMPARISON.
I take my text out of book which
man wrote who looked into the future.
On he looked into that undiscovered country
and set down here what he saw. 1t Is In
teresting to compare this book, which was
written a good many years ago, with that
latest endeavor in prophetic literature OF
which I just now spoke-with Looking
Backward. The most important and most
noticeable difference would probably be
found to consist in this: That this old book
is very rich Just where the new book is very
poor; it emphasizes life in quite different
place; it has different measure of value.
The millennium. according to "Looking
Backward, " is time and land wherein
everyb body has plenty of good food, and good
furniture, and good clothes. 1t is land
wherein the little German child's petition is
answered, who prayed "Gve us this day
our daily bread" und Uiel butter ddraV-
and much butter thereonl But religion is
left out Beyond the statement that in the
millennium sermons will be heard by tele-
phone, so that the congregation will be
spared the exertion of coming to church;
beyond the report OF sermon which is re-
markable for its lack of nearly everything
which sermon ought to have, and which
would have astonished good George Herbert,
who wrote '"The character OF his (the ideal
parson's) sermon is holiness; he is not witty,
or learned, or eloquent, but holy" beyond
this, so far as remember, there is no men
ton of religion.
THE POINT OF CONTRAST.
But in that older book, from which take
my text, the millennium will be the land
and time wherein religion will be pre-
eminent and universal. There is not much
said in this book about what we will eat in
the ideal world or what we will drink, or
wherewithal we will be clothed, but there is
great deal said about the kingdom Of God
and His righteousness. And the evident
meaning of the book is that this is a matter
OF infinitely more Importance.
The book is the Revelation of st. John,
and the words which i take for my text are
these: 'T saw new heaven and a new
earth, for the first heaven and the first
earth were passed away, and there was no
more sea-"
The book is called s.The Revelation" and
st. John tells US how God showed him the
wonderful things which he has here set
down. But revelation is always conditioned
by the receiving mind. There are always
two persons who are essential to a revela-
tion-the revealer and the one to whom
something is revealed. How much the re-
vealer can reveal depends upon how much
the man can receive to whom the revealer
speaks. 1t is like teaching children. There
are some things which you can teach them,
and some things which you cannot teach
them. You can teach them the alphabet,
but you cannot teach them partial differen-
tial equations. That Is outside of their
mental circum ference.
THE LIMIT OF REVELATION.
Some things God can tell us, some things
it would be useless for GOD to tell US, be-
cause we could not understand them. Even
revelation must be in harmony with previ-
Gus thought. We notice, accordingly, that
st. Johns heaven is mainly TRANSPORTED
earth. His future is but the past thrown
forward, with such betterings as God had
taught him, into the life to come. His ideal
world is built up out of the materials of the
real world in which we live.
Thus nature, in some form, goes on.
There is a new heaven and new earth,
but they are the old sky and the old ground
spiritualized. hallowed. transfgured. The
varied interests of human liie also go on.
st. John saw holy city.
There is much in the Revelation which
we fud it hard TO understand. The strange
creatures, the angels and archang. Is, the |
dragons the t-umpets, perplex us. But this |
we can understand. The ideal world is that |
in which there is new earth and a new |
sky-or perhaps the old looked at with |
wiser and clearer eyes; and new city, in
which men and women will be living new
lite-or perhaps the old life lived better.
A SIGNIFICANT OMISSION.
But there is one point in st. Johns de- |
scription wherein the parallel between the |
present and the future stops. One great |
feature of the world of nature St. John |
leaves out. He not only leaves it out, but |
he expressly states that there will be no more |
of it. St. John looked into the future, into |
the ideal world, and 'there was no more |
sea-" Why not? The sea stands for health |
ami strength, and rest; it is background |
in the picture of the shore full of varied |
beauty, full of immeasurable grandeur; it |
is a threshold which we cross to visit the |
wonders OF the old world. ''There was no |
more sea-" But why?
OF course the sea symbolized something, |
which in the vision of St. John had no |
place in the ideal world. Perhaps it was
symbol of dtscontent.' The unquiet, charg-
ing, restless ocean, tossing ever to and fro,
always surging back and forth along the
shore, and ever lifting up voice full of
complaining or Of threatening-St John,
looking out over its troubled waves from
his solitary outpost at Patmos, may have
felt that the meaning of it was weariness,
unrest, disquiet, discomfort, Tor which there
would be no place in the new world of God.
THE SEA WAS UNKNOWN.
Or perhaps it symbolized unanswered
questions. Away it reached, league alter |
league, into the unknown. 1t was not !
bounded then in the biographies as it is
now. People knew not enough about the |
world to say whether it were round or fiat. |
The sea stretched out indefinitely. Men |
looked out over that unbroken reach of |
water and asked questions, with no |
answers. Upon the other side lay the land |
of darkness they said the land of dragons. !
Its very depths we're suggestive of insoluble |
problems. "Thy Judgments" the psalmist |
said, are like the great Deep" But in |