2:17. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.—Not many have had the “hearing ear.” “There’s just one here, one there.” To him that overcometh will I give [to eat] of the hidden manna.—“Manna was the bread which came down from heaven as a life‐sustainer for Israel. It represented the living bread, Christ Himself. One peculiarity of the golden pot of manna ‘hidden’ in the Tabernacle, marking it as the same and yet different from that supplied to the Israelites in general, was that it was _incorruptible_; hence it well illustrates the immortal, incorruptible condition promised to the Church.”—T. 122; Ex. 16:33, 34; Heb. 9:4; John 6:49, 50. And [will give him] a white stone.—“In ancient times the Greeks and the Romans had a custom of noting and perpetuating friendship by means of a _white stone_. This stone was divided into halves, and each person inscribed his name on the flat surface, after which the parts of the stone were exchanged. The production of either half was sufficient to insure friendly aid. Thus the divided stone became a mark of identification. There is an individual and personal relationship between the Lord and the overcomers, who may be said to receive the mark of identification—the antitypical white stone—_now_, in this life. This mark is the sealing of the Holy Spirit.”—Z. ’12‐315. And in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.—The new name signifies a new relationship to Jehovah.—Gen. 17:5, 15; 32:28. 2:18. And [unto] BY the angel.—The messenger to the fourth epoch of the Church was Peter Waldo. “Peter, an opulent merchant of Lyons, surnamed Valdensis, or Valdisius, from Vaux, or Waldum, a town in the marquisate of Lyons, being extremely zealous for the advancement of true piety and Christian knowledge, employed a certain priest, called Stephanus de Evisa, about the year 1160, in translating, from Latin into French, the four Gospels, with other books of Holy Scripture. But no sooner had he perused these sacred books with a proper degree of attention, than he perceived that the religion which was now taught in the Roman church differed totally from that which was originally inculcated by Christ and His Apostles. Struck with this glaring contradiction between the doctrines of the pontiffs and the truths of the Gospel, and animated with zeal, he abandoned his mercantile vocation, distributed his riches among the poor (whence the Waldenses were called poor men of Lyons), and forming an association with other pious men who had adopted his sentiments and his turn of devotion, he began to assume the quality of a public teacher, and to instruct the multitude in the doctrines and precepts of Christianity.