The city shall not, as the old Jerusalem, be built of common stone; even the foundations shall be adorned with jasper, and sapphire, and chalcedony, and emerald, and sardonyx, and sardius, and chrysolite, and beryl, and topaz, and chrysoprase, the jacinth, and amethyst. There shall be a river, and trees bearing fruit for food and leaves for healing. All these things the writer assures them shall soon come to pass. In the great day of victory throngs of people shall be there, arrayed in white; all, both the living and the dead, who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, shall be present. They shall be invited to the marriage of the Lamb, and to the wonderful feast that will follow. We are justified in believing that this poetical and highly imaginative portrayal of the conflict was very effective with the humble, illiterate, and sorely persecuted people who constituted the Christian Church at that time. They revived from their coldness, they turned their backs upon the insidious temptations and allurements of the heathen world, and went in armies to the martyr's death. Rome was conquered, but not in the way the author expected. Rome was conquered by being made Christian, at least nominally and politically. The histories that record the conflict between the Christians and Rome are not less blood-curdling than the book of Revelation. The conflict was frightful, only it was in terms of blood, and fire, and dungeon. If the ingenious and infernal methods of torture, invented by Rome, present a picture difficult to read, what must the reality have been to bear? We should never cease to thank God that these humble Christians were nerved for the conflict. The modern world owes these martyrs a debt of gratitude as high as the heavens and as deep as the seas. When we consider the people, the times, and the crisis, the book of Revelation was a means well suited to a noble end. Who can look upon such a scene, and witness such heroism, and read such desperate utterances rising out of the conflict as are recorded by the author of Revelation without wishing to be a better man, and a more loyal follower of the one who still stands among the candlesticks,--His Churches. Sabatier has wisely said, "Apocalypses do not reveal to us the secrets of the divine providence, but do reveal the optimistic believing nature of the soul." During the recent war, many portions of our country were burnt over with the fanaticism that has sprung from a false and unhistorical interpretation of Revelation and other apocalyptic writings. The following extract from Professor Porter's book, "Daniel and Revelation," is of special interest: