The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1905-06-08

usalem, studded with jewels from its
walls, and Craven with the mystic EN-
blems of beasts and elders. The posi-
ton it holds in the sacred canon is
evidently the very one Inspiration
designed it should occupy. The last
book corresponds to the first with its
paradise, tree, and river And the
beatitude upon the reader is not for
the one who peruses Revelation only,
but the whole volume. The curse
upon the one who adds TO or detracts
from refers not to the Apocalypse
alone, but to the entire Scripture.
Revelation binds the volume together.
The place of its composition was
previously so obscure that the writer
must needs inform the earliest readers
that Patmos is an island. But ever
since that Kgean rock which served
the last seer as watch-tower from
which to view the double panorama,
celestial and terrestrial, has been COW
cred with a solemn glory The
person of the composer. too, has a
fascinating charm. The Thunder
err and yet, the beloved disciples the
last link between the apostolic and
post-apostolic age; all his associates in
the college of the apostles dead, and
that. too, by violence; he, in age and
feebleness extreme, an exile by the
cruelty of DOmitian. possibly a com
mon labOrer in the quarrY-such a
one on the Lord 's-daY, caught up into
the Lords presence in the third heav.
en-, and not, like Paul, reticent as to
what he saw, but forcing and tor
turing language to express his cOlOs-
sal conceptions in the grlndest and
most energetic forms"
The ChristophanY, of course, eclip-
SEES all the rest of the book, crowded
though 1T is with dazzling wonders.
John taxes human language to the
uttermost in his attempted por-
traiture of the glorified person of
Jesus Christ. He lays color to color,
adds jewel to jewel. He affects not
the beautiful, but the ineffably glo-
rious. Never did painter, whether
with pigment or word, have such
study. The Lord of life and glory
deigns to give His disciple"a sitting"
The ChristOphany was mercifully
gradual. Mortal eye could not have
supported it had it been instantane-
Gus. 1t was announced by trumpet
voice, the greatness and unearth-
illness Of which prepared the revelator
for something supernatural; a voice
that charged him to be as alert as a
modern stenographer in taking down
what he saw and heard. When he
turned to look, his eyes were further
schooled to splender by seeing only
certain subsidiary objects. The
seven golden lamp-stands all
ablaze was goodly enought sight in
itself. They represent the vehicle
through which God shines-His
Churches; golden, to show he prizes
them; separate, to suggest their
autonomy; seven of them, to represent
the whole Church. The eye of rapt
exile passes slowly from the shining
candelabra to the more than regal
form, the glorified person of Jesus
Christ as it gradually materializes.
Even here the apostle passes from the
accessory to the principal, from the
clothing to the person. You have
seen the gown woven out of spun
glass. This glorious sacerdotal robe
was woven out of sunbeams. Not,
as on Hermon's sacred height, for a
moment, bnt forever His raimeut con-
tinues white as the light. The regal
golden girdle high above his breast
"braces the frame together and SYM
bolizes collected power The Cir
die also 50 placed disposes the gar
ment for calm, majestic movement.
Like Aaron's robe and girdle, these,
too, are for glory and beauty"
And now John dares glance at Jesus
brow. He admires the coronal glory.
Any modern electrical display would
fade before it, as the stars do when
the sun rises. 1t is dazzling silyery
wilderness, as white fleece, sparkling
as the snow does when the sun sets
its myriad tiny stars ablaze. The
large and lustrous eyes are all ahame,
not in wrath, but with Divine genius.
His bare feet fairly cleaned like met
al at white heat And His voice re-
sounds like the multitudinous waves
even then pounding on the rock-girt
isle. In the palm of His outstretched
right hand lies a chaplet of seven
stars-signitying that each Church
and the whole Church is in His keep
ing. Whedon suggests that the sword
from the mouth is mot a stiff, steel
fixture, but His Divine and powerful
breath making itself, as it were, Wis
ible." The tout ensemble is as the
sun in the meridian, unobscured by
mist or cloud.
But the glorified person of the mon