In the light of modern criticism the primary question to be decided is whether we are dealing with an ordinary Jewish‐Christian apocalypse of similar value with a multitude of others in the past, and with no essentially deeper meaning or diviner message; or whether we have not in the Apocalypse of John a true revelation, given in this literary form because of its particular suitability to the condition of the time, and its fitness for the needs of the generation that first received it. And the answer to this question must be sought in the contents of the book itself as vindicated by the Christian conscience—an answer that the church has never been slow to make, and that never can be changed so long as the needs of the human heart remain the same. We must therefore regard the fundamental question which lies back of that of interpretation, viz. the inspiration of the book itself, which alone can give it permanent value to the Christian mind, as definitely settled by the clear message which it contains for life, by the multitudinous voices of God which reverberate within it, and by the heaven‐born solace which it ever affords to tried and tempted men in the midst of the conflict of life. And we shall find that the general meaning, so far from being hopelessly obscure, may be fairly understood by the attentive student and devout reader. The obscurity of the Revelation arises both from its literary form and from the mystical character of its contents. The Apocalyptic form is so foreign to our way of thinking, and the mysticism is so peculiarly Oriental and Jewish, that these are apt to perplex rather than enlighten us. The Apocalyptist, deeply absorbed in the later prophecies of the Old Testament, especially those of Daniel and Ezekiel, and his mind steeped in the dreams and images of current Jewish apocalypses, found under the influence of the Spirit a fitting sphere for his prophetic fervor in a series of strange symbolic visions such as belonged to the fashion of his time. The chief symbolism throughout is that of the Old Testament, quickened and vivified by the thought of the New,—for it is everywhere assumed that the mysteries of the former dispensation find their only adequate solution in the supreme and final testimony of Jesus the Christ,(4)—but the atmosphere of the visions is that of Apocalyptic, which curiously enough has contrived to cast its own peculiar glow upon all the Old Testament teachings and thus create a new symbolism out of the old. And even when many of the symbols are assumed to be drawn in their present form from apocalypses then current in the Jewish world but which are no longer extant, and these to be derived in part from Babylonian and Persian sources, as held by one class of interpreters, they are yet found to have become so assimilated by the Jewish mind that they reflect the later development of Old Testament thought. These visions of the seer, like