Upon this it should be observed, _first,_ that it was not by the arrangement of the inspired writer himself that the Book of Revelation was made the last book of the Bible; nor is that book the last inspired book of the New Testament collection that was written. It is the prevailing opinion of the early Christian writers that the Book of Revelation was written while the apostle John was an exile on the isle of Patmos, and that he did not write his book called "The Gospel according to St. John," until after his return from Patmos. [11] "The weight of evidence now tends to prove," says Canon Farrar, speaking of the Book of Revelation, "that it is _not_ the last book in chronological order; that it was written nearer the beginning than the end of St. John's period of apostolic activity amid the churches of Asia; that the last accents of revelation which fall upon our ears are not those of a treatise which, though it ends in such music, contains so many terrible visions of blood and fire; but rather those of the gospel which tells us that the 'Word was made flesh,' and of the epistle which first formulated the most blessed truth which was ever uttered to human hearts--the truth that 'God is love.'" [12] And again: "Some may think it an exaggeration to say that this closing of the Holy Book with the Apocalypse has not been without grave consequences for the history of Christendom; but certainly it would have been better both for the church and for the world if we had followed the divine order, and if those books had been placed last in the canon which were last in order of time. Had this been done, our Bible would have closed as the Book of God to all intents and purposes did close, with the epistle and solemn warning of the last apostle, 'Little children, keep yourselves from idols.'" [13] If the words in the last chapter in the Book of Revelation mean that no more scripture or revelation was to be written after the prohibitory words under consideration, then John himself became a violator of the word of God which he himself had written; for according to the testimony here adduced his gospel and first epistle were written after he Book of Revelation. Such an alternative as makes the divinely inspired writer a violator of his own supposed inhibition of further revelation is so absurd, so unlike the conduct of an inspired apostle, that it is sufficient in itself to overthrow the theory that the passage in the last chapter of the Apocalypse intended to close the volume of revelation. _Second:_ Since the Apocalypse had no connection with the other books of the New Testament for many years after it was written, its prohibitory clause under the most liberal construction could only have reference to itself--it forbade men adding anything more to that particular book of prophecy, the Apocalypse, not to a volume of scripture with which, at the time, it had no connection.