which could not well have been departed from to any great extent without making their meaning wholly unintelligible. And the more clearly we apprehend this fact, the more constantly we apply it in our interpretation, the more likely are we to arrive at the meaning intended.(43) For while the Western mind revolts against the oftime obscurity of Apocalyptic symbols, yet we not infrequently recur to the same method of illustration. For instance, a good example of the present day use of symbols, aided by illustrative skill, is found in such a cartoon as “The Modern Juggernaut” that appeared a few years ago, in which the wheeled car of India was transformed into a huge wine bottle full of intoxicating drink that rolls along its way, crushing out the lives of thousands of miserable victims, while the fierce dogs of War, Famine, and Pestilence have under its malign influence slipped their leash and go forth to prey upon men.(44) This symbolism in some measure parallels that of the Scarlet Beast in the Revelation, and shows how a great destructive force operating in the world may be presented to many minds in an objective form much more effectively than by any abstract verbal statement. Like a parable an apocalypse flings a great truth across our path, instinct with the touch of spiritual life. The revelation made to John doubtless took the Apocalyptic form because it was the prevailing literary method of that time for the treatment of the theme dealt with by his prophecy, and its constructive symbolism already filled and colored his thought. But notwithstanding that it is cast in a Jewish mould, the Christian thought everywhere triumphs over the Jewish form. The line of thought is limited to the peculiar range of Apocalyptic subjects, and is found to be closely related to that of our Lord’s discourse upon the last things (the so‐called “little apocalypse” of our Lord in Mat. 24), though it should not be regarded as formally an amplification of that discourse, or as chiefly or wholly determined in content by it.(45) The prophetic mood is manifest in every part of the book, and the exalted mental state of the writer is sustained throughout after the manner of a rhapsody, in the structure and movement of which all literary forms are in a measure fused together.(46) Indeed by a deeper study of this unique work we come to feel as though in it “we touch the living soul of Asiatic Christendom”. It remains to be said that while we class the Apocalypse of John with Jewish apocalypses as to literary form, yet it so manifestly rises above its class both in method and content that it is universally accorded the first place among Apocalyptic writings, and fully establishes its claim to a place among the inspired books of Scripture by reason of the penetrative prophetic insight which it everywhere displays in dealing with the greatest, the most central, and the most mysterious theme in the whole sphere of Christian thought. 9. The Theme.