The wondrous joy which came to the Christian in the assemblies we have been picturing--the fact of the new Brotherhood--the feeling of the presence of the Master in their midst, watching over them--has been already dwelt upon at some length. The blessed consciousness of _the forgiveness of all sin_, the knowledge that in repentance and in prayer they could ever wash anew their scarred robes white in the blood of the Lamb, was a source of perpetual and ever-recurring joy to the earnest Christian. The doctrine of the atonement ever would give them constant comfort and confidence in all the difficulties and dangers of common everyday life--“Though their sins were as scarlet they would become white as snow,” was an ancient Hebrew saying of Isaiah. It was one of the precious treasures inherited by the Christian from the Jewish Church. And in the sorely harassed and tempted life of the world of Rome the words would be often repeated by the believers, with the new striking Christian addition--“when washed in the blood of the Lamb,” and the memory of the beautiful saying would ever supply fresh courage for the conflict. * * * * * Perhaps the most powerful and sustaining of all the Christian beliefs, the one that never for an instant was absent from their thoughts, was the _hope_--aye, more than hope, the certainty that bliss indescribable awaited the soul of the happy redeemed _the moment_ it quitted the body--“To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise”--a wonderful promise, indeed, of the Redeemer, which must have brought ineffable sweetness and repose into thousands of storm-tossed hearts,--a promise which must have made up for many a hard and painful struggle. The life so hard and difficult--so full of dangers and perplexities--would soon come to an end, and then _at once_ the beatific vision would be their guerdon, and rest and peace and joy would be the portion of the redeemed souls for ever. Our picture of the inner life of the Christian in the early Christian centuries would be incomplete were we not to allude to the influence, perhaps scarcely recognised but ever at work, of portions of the “Revelation” of S. John. Holding, of course, in the teaching of the Christian masters a very different position to the Gospels, which, of course, formed the authoritative basis of all Christian instruction, the “Revelation” occupied a peculiar and singularly influential place in the thoughts of the early harassed believers.