Connecticut western news., 1891-11-12

will come when the Christ, whom Paul was serving when he 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 hemispheres must have them. As you put down upon a scale the heavy pound weights, and then the small ounces, and no one thinks of de- spising the small weights, so the conti- nents are the pounds and the islands | are the ounces. A continent is only larger island, and an island only a smaller continent. Something of what part the islands have taken in the worlds history you will see when re- mind you that the island of Salamis 1 produced Solon, and that the island of Chios produced Homer, and the island of Samos produced Pythagoras, and the island of Coos produced Hippoc rates.
 But there is one island that I longed to see more than any other. can af- ford to miss the princes among the islands, but 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 Scio or AIitylene, but 1 had rather in this sail through the Grecian archi- pelago see that than all the others, for more of the glories of heaven landed 1 there than on all the islands and conti- nents since the world stood. As we come toward it feel my pulses quicken. ''I, John, was in the island that is called Patmos."
 It is a piles of rocks twenty-eight miles in circumference. A few expresses and inferior olives pump living out of the earth, and one palm tree spreads its foliage. But the barrenness and | gloom and loneliness of the island made it a prison for the banished evangelist. Domitian could not stand his ministry, and one day, under armed guard, that minister of the Gospel stepped from a tossing boat to these dismal rocks and ,. walked up to the dismal cavern which was to be his homo, and the place where should pass before him all the conflicts of coming time and all the raptures of 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 banishment-Homer and Mil ton banished into blindness; Beethoven hanished into deafness; Dante writing his "Divina Comlnedia" during the nineteen years of banishment from his native land; Victor Hugo writing his country on the island of Guernsey, and the brightest visions of the future have been given to these 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 t,.cm.
 So Patlhos, 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 be successfully seen, tn" room in which you sit must be darkened and in the presence of John was to pass such a panorama as no man ever before saw or ever will see in this world, and hence the gloom of his surroundings was d help rather than a hindrance.
 All tue surroundings of the place af fected St. Johns imagery when he 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 the falnished man is apt to dream of bonn- tiful tables covered with luXuries, so St. John says of the inhabitants of heaven, ''They shall hunger no more." Scarcity of fresh water on Patmos and the hot tongue of St. Johns thirst leads him to admire heaven as he says, They shall thirst no more.' St. John hears the waves of the sea wildly flashing against the rocks, and each wave has voice, and all the waves together make a chorus, and they remind him of the muititudinous anthems of heaven, and he 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 seelned to set them on fire, and there was a mingling of white light and intense flame, and as St. John looked out from his cavern home upon that brilliant sea, he thought of the splendors of heaven and describes them "As a sea of glass mingled with fire" !" Yes, seated in the dark cavern of Pat mos, though hoinesick and hungry and loaded with Domitian'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 the lights that we mcv better see it. The panorama passes and lo. the conquering Christ robed, ;,,;rdled, armed, the flash of golden c;,ndlesticlIs and seven stars in his right hand. candlesiicks and stars meaning light held up and . ,ht scat tered. And there passes i throne and Christ on it, and the seals broken, and the woes sounded, and dragon slain, and seven last plaques swoop, and seven vials are poured out and the vision vanishes. And we halt a mo- nent TO rest from the exciting spec tacle
 Again the panorama moves on be- fore the cavern of Patmos, and John