Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1891-11-14

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higher than the Colossus, and the day
will come when the Christ, whom Paul
was serving when lie sailed into this
harbor of Rhodes, shall take possession
| of that island.
IMPORTANCE OF ISLANDS.
As we move on up through this
archipelago am reminded of what an
/ important part the islands have taken
in the history of the world They are
necessary to the balancing of the planet.
| The two henispheres must have them.
AS you put down upon scale the
iEhedvy pound weights, and then the
small ounces, and no one thinks of de-
spising the small weights, SO the CONT
nents are the pounds and the islands
are the ounces. a continent is only a
larger island, and an island only q
smaller continent. Something of what
part the islands have taken in the
worlds history you will see when I re-
mind you that the island OF Salamis
produced Scion, and that the island of
Chios produced Homer, and the island
| Of Sunos produced Pythagoras and
the island of Coos produced Hippoc
rates. -. s, y.
p But there is one island that longed
Ito see more than any, other. Lean af-
ford to miss the princes among the
Islands, but I must see the king Of the
archipelago. The one ] longed to see
is not So many miles in circumference
as Cyprus or Crete or Paros or Naxos
or Scie or Mitylene, but I had rather
in this sail through the Grecian archi-
pelago see that than all the others, for
more OF the glories of heaven landed
there than on all the islands and CONT
nents since the world stood AS VIC
come toward it feel my pulses quicken.
81, John. was in the island that is
called Patmos."
1t is a piles of rocks twenty-eight
miles in circumference. A few expresses
and inferior olives pump q living out
of the earth, and one palm tree spreads
! it's foliage. But the barrenness and
gloom and loneliness of the island made
it u prison for the banished evangelist.
Dolnitian could not stand his ministry,
ana one day, under armed guard, that
minister of the Gospel stepped from Il
tossing boat to these dismal rocks and
walked up to the dismal cavern which
was to be his home, and the place
where should pass before him all the
conflicts of coming time and all the
raptures of q coming eternity.
Is it not remarkable that nearly all
the great revelations of music and po-
etry and religion have been made to
men in observation-disclosures and Mil
ton banished into blindness; Beethoven
hanished into deafness; Dante writing
lis "Divina Colnmedia" during the
nineteen years of Punishment from his
native land; Victor Hugo writing his
"Les Miserables' exiled IRON home and
country on the island of Guernsey, and
the brightest visions of the future have
been given to those who by sickness or
sorrow were exiled from the outer
world into rooms of suffering. Only
those WHO have been imprisoned by
very hard surroundings have had great
revelations made to them.
So Patmos. wild, chill and bleak
and terrible. was the best island in all
the archipelago, the best place in all
the earth for divine revelations. Be
fore a panorama can BIO successfully
seen. the room in which you sit must be
darkened, and in the presence of John
was to pass such panorama as no
man ever before saw or ever will see in
this world, and hence the gloom of his
surroundings was help rather than a
hindrance.
All tile surroundings of the place af-
fected st. Johns imagery when lie
speaks of heaven St: John, hungry
from enforced abstinence, or having no
food except that at which his appetite
revolted, thinks of heaven; and as tho
furnished man is apt to dream Of bonn-
tiful tables covered with Injuries, SO st.
John says of the inhabitants Of heaven,
'sThey shall hunger no more. Scarcity
of fresh water on Patnos and the Lot
tongue of st. Johns thirst leads linn to
admire heaven as he says, They shall
thirst no more" st. John hears the
waves of the sea wildly dashing against
the rocks, and each wave has voice,
and all the waves together make a
chorus, and they remind him of the
inultitudinous anthems of heaven, and
lie says, They are like the voice OF
many waters"
One day, as he looked off upon the
sea, the waters were very smooth, as it
is today while we sail them in the Min
erva, and they were like glass, and
the sunlight seemed to set them on fire,
and there was mingling of white light
and intense flame, and as st. John
looked out from bis cavern home upon
that brilliant sea, he thought of the
splendors of heaven and describes them
"As sea of glass mingled with fire. "
Yes, seated in the dark cavern of Pat
mos, though holnesick and hungry and
loaded with Domlrian's anathemas, St.
John was the most fortunate man on
earth because of the panorama that
passed before the mouth of that cavern.
LET US VIEW THE PANORAMA.
Turn down all tile lights that we
may better see it. The panorama
passes, and 10! the conquering Christ,
rcbed, girdled, armed, the flash of
golden candlesticls and seven stars in
his right hand, candlesticks and stars
meaning light held up and light scat
tered. And there passes a throne and