The Globe-republican., 1891-11-26

unreasonable hours, I concluded to stay
on deck, for I must see Rhodes, one Of
the islands associated with the name of
the greatest missionary the world ever
saw or ever will see. Paul landed there,
and that was enough to make 1t famous
while the world stands, and famous in
| Heaven when the world has become q
charred wreck.
| This island has had q wonderful his
tory. With 5000 Knights of St John. it
at one time stood out against 200, 900
warriors under 'SolYman the Magnifi-
cent" The city had 3, 600 statues, and q
statue to Apollo called Colossus, which
has always since been considered one of
the seven wonders of the world. 1t was
| twelve years in building and was seventy
cubits high, and had winding stairs to
the top. 1t stood fifty-six years. and then
was Frustrated by an earthquake. After
lying in ruins for 900 years, it was pur-
| chased to be converted to other pur-
poses, and the metal, weighing 72O, 600
| pounds, was put on 900 camels and car
| ried away. We were not permitted to go
| ashore, but the lights all up and down
| the hills show where the city stands,
and nine boats come out to take freight
and to bring three passengers. Yet all
| the thousands Of years of its history are
eclipsed by the few hours or days that
Paul stopped there.
But there is one island that l longed
to see more than any other. can afford
to miss the princes among the islands,
but must see the king of the archipei
ago. The one lOnged to see is not SO
many miles in circumference as Cyprus
or Crete or Paros or Naxos or ScfO or
Mitylene, but I had rather. in this sail
through the Grecian archipelago, see
that than all the others; for more Of the
glories of Heaven landed there than on all
the islands and continents since the world
stood. AS we come toward it feel my
pulses quicken. 81, John, was on the
island that is called PatmOs." 1t is a
pile Of rocks twenty-eight miles in cir
conference A few cypressesand 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 that was
to be his home 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 poetry and religion have been
made to men in observation-disclosures and
Milton banished into blindness; Beetho-
ven banished into deafness; Dante writ
ing his ''Divina Comedia" during nine
teen years of Punishment from his native
land; Victor Hugo writing his Lies Mis-
CRADLES" exiled from home and country
on the island of Guernsey. and the bright
est 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. Before a
panorama can be successfully seen, the
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
help rather than hindrance. All the
surroundings of the place affected st.
Johns imagery when he speaks of
Heaven. St. John, hungry from en-
forced abstinence. or having no food ex
cept that at which his appetite revolted,
thinks Of Heaven; and as the famished
man is apt to dream of bountiful 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 them 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 q chorus, and they re-
mind him of the multitudinOus anthems
of Heaven, and he saws, ''They are like
voice of many waters" One day, as he
looked off upon the sea, the waters were
very smooth, as it is to-day while We sail
them in the Minerva, and they were like
glass. and the sunlight seemed to set
them on fire, and there was q 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 de-
scribes them LAS sea of glass mingled
with fire." Yes, seated in the dark
cavern of Patmos, though homesick 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.
Turn down all the lights that we may
better see it. The panorama passes, and
10! the conQuering Christ robed, girdled,
armed, the flash of golden candlesticks
and seven stars in His right hand,
candlesticks and stars meaning light
held up and light scattered. And there
passes a throne and Christ on it, and the