In the year 70, the same in which Jerusalem was destroyed, happened the first great eruption of the volcano, Mount Vesuvius, in which was killed Drusilla, the wife of Felix. Her brother, Agrippa, ruled by favour of the Romans for many years in the little domain of Chalcis. Titus was emperor after his father. He was a very kind-hearted man, and used to say he had lost a day whenever he had spent one without doing a good action; but he was soon poisoned by his wicked brother, Domitian, who succeeded to his throne in 81. Domitian was a savage tyrant, cruel to all, because he was afraid of all. He hated the Jews; and hearing that some persons of royal blood still existed among them, he caused search to be made for them, and two sons of St. Jude were brought before him. They owned that they came of the line of David; but they told him they were poor simple men, and showed him their hands hardened with toil; and he thought they could do him so little harm, that he let them go. He also laid hands on the aged St. John, and caused him to be put into a caldron of boiling oil; but the martyr in will, though not in deed, felt no hurt, and was thereupon banished to the little Greek Isle of Patmos. Here was vouchsafed to him a wonderful vision, answering to those of Daniel, his likeness among the prophets. He saw the true heavenly courts, such as Moses had shadowed in the Tabernacle, and which Ezekiel had described so minutely; he saw the same fourfold Cherubim, and listened to the same threefold chant of praise, as Isaiah had heard; he saw the seven lamps of fire, and the rainbow of mercy round about the Throne; and in the midst, in the eternal glory of His priestly robes, he beheld Him on Whose bosom be had lain, and Who had called him beloved. From His lips he wrote messages of counsel and warning to the angels, or Bishops, of the Seven Churches of Asia Minor; and then came a succession of wonderful visions, each opening with the Church in Heaven and in earth constantly glorifying Him that sitteth on the Throne, and the Lamb, for ever and ever; but going on to show the crimes in the world beneath, and the judgments one after another poured out by the Angels; the true remnant of the Church persecuted; and the world partly curbed by, partly corrupting, the visible Church; then the destruction of the wicked world, under the type of Babylon; the last judgment; the eternal punishment of the sinful; the final union of Christ and His Church; and the eternal blessedness of the faithful in the heavenly Jerusalem, with the Tree of Life restored.