When the Beloved Disciple, who lay on the Lord's bosom, had a revelation of what was to happen in the time to come, the vision was presented to him under the form of that worship which Peter first, in the company of his brother Apostles, which the bishop of each city afterwards, surrounded by his ancients and in the presence of the faithful people, celebrated. It seems to be the interior of a church in the apostolic age which we have described, and all the meaning of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, as the witness of creative power and redeeming love, set forth. But it is the Lord Himself, who with the voice of a trumpet proclaimed Himself to be the First and the Last, and charged His Apostle with letters to the Seven Churches, who now says with the same voice, "Come up hither, and I will show thee the things which must be done hereafter." "I looked," he says, "and behold a door was opened in heaven, and immediately I was in the spirit; and behold there was a throne set in heaven, and upon the throne One sitting. And He that sat was to the sight like the jasper and the sardine-stone; and there was a rainbow round about the throne in sight like unto an emerald. And round about the throne were four-and-twenty seats; and upon the seats four-and-twenty ancients sitting, clothed in white garments, and on their heads crowns of gold. And from the throne proceeded lightnings and voices and thunders; and there were seven lamps burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God." Here, in the likeness of an ancient basilica, with the throne of the bishop in the apse, and the seats of his presbyters in a semicircle round him, we have the court of the Almighty set forth, and the ineffable grandeur of the creating God: when "the four living creatures full of eyes gave glory and honour and benediction to Him that sitteth on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever, the four-and-twenty ancients fell down before Him that sitteth on the throne, and adored Him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honour and power, because Thou hast created all things, and for Thy will they are (εἰσὶ,) and have been created."