Nothing could be more pleasing to the Saints upon the order of the kingdom of the Lord, than the light which burst upon the world through the foregoing vision. Every law, every commandment, every promise, every truth, and every point touching the destiny of man, from Genesis to Revelation, where the purity of the scriptures remains unsullied by the folly of men, go to show the perfection of the theory [of different degrees of glory in the future life] and witnesses the fact that that document is a transcript from the records of the eternal world. The sublimity of the ideas; the purity of the language; the scope for action; the continued duration for completion, in order that the heirs of salvation may confess the Lord and bow the knee; the rewards for faithfulness, and the punishments for sins, are so much beyond the narrow-mindedness of men, that {253} every honest man is constrained to exclaim: "_It came from God_." [Sidenote: A Key to St. John's Book of Revelation.] About the first of March, in connection with the translation of the Scriptures, I received the following explanation of the Revelation of St. John: _Revelation, given at Hiram, Portage County, Ohio._ [10] 1. Q.--What is the sea of glass spoken of by John, 4th chapter, and 6th verse of the Revelations? A. It is the earth, in its sanctified, immortal and eternal state. 2. Q. What are we to understand by the four beasts, spoken of in the same verse? A. They are figurative expressions, used by the Revelator John, in describing Heaven, the Paradise of God, the happiness of man, and of beasts, and of creeping things, and of the fowls of the air; that which is spiritual, being in the likeness of that which is temporal; and that which is temporal, in the likeness of that which is spiritual; the spirit of man in the likeness of his person, as also the spirit of the beast, and every other creature which God has created. 3. Q. Are the four beasts limited to individual beasts, or do they represent classes or orders? A. They are limited to four individual beasts, which were shown to John, to represent the glory of the classes of beings, in their destined order or sphere of creation, in the enjoyment of their eternal felicity. 4. Q. What are we to understand by the eyes, and wings, which the beasts had? A. Their eyes are a representation of light, and knowledge; that is they are full of knowledge; and their wings are a representation of power, to move, to act, &c. 5. Q. What are we to understand by the four and twenty Elders, spoken of by John? A. We are to understand that these Elders whom John saw, were Elders who had been faithful in the work of the ministry and were dead; who belonged to the seven churches,--and were then in the Paradise of God.