Nor is this all. The glory of the city is still further illustrated by figures bearing more immediately upon its spiritual rather than its material aspect. The outward helps needed by men in leading the life of God in their present state of imperfection are dispensed with. There is _no temple therein: for the Lord, God, the Almighty, is the temple thereof, and the Lamb. The city hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine upon it: for the glory of God lightens_ it by day, _and the lamp thereof_ by night _is the Lamb_. There is in it no sin, and every positive element of happiness is provided in abundance for the blest inhabitants. _A river of water of life, bright as crystal_, flows there; _and on this side of the river and on that side is the tree of life_, not bearing fruit only once a year, but _every month_, not yielding one only, but _twelve manner of fruits_, so that all tastes may be gratified, having nothing about it useless or liable to decay. The very _leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations_, and it is evidently implied that they are always green. Finally, _there shall be no curse any more. The throne of God and of the Lamb is therein. His servants do Him service. They see His face. His name is in their foreheads._ They are priests unto God in the service of the heavenly sanctuary. _They reign for ever and ever._ One important question still remains: What aspect of the Church does the holy city Jerusalem, thus come down out of heaven from God, represent? Is it the Church as she shall be after the Judgment, when her three great enemies, together with all who have listened to them, have been for ever cast out? Or have we before us an ideal representation of the true Church of Christ as she exists now, and before a final separation has been made between the righteous and the wicked? Unquestionably the first aspect of the passage leads to the former view; and, if there be anything like a chronological statement of events in the Apocalypse, no other may be possible. But we have already seen that the thought of chronology must be banished from this book. The Apocalypse contains simply a series of visions intended to exhibit, with all the force of that inspiration under which the Seer wrote, certain great truths connected with the revelation in humanity of the Eternal Son. It is intended, too, to exhibit these in their ideal, and not merely in their historical, form. They are indeed to appear in history; but, inasmuch as they do not appear there in their ultimate and completed form, we are taken beyond the limited field of historical manifestation. We see them in their real and essential nature, and as they _are_, in themselves, whether we think of evil on the one hand, or of good on the other. In this treatment of them, however, chronology disappears. Such being the case, we are prepared to ask whether the vision of the new Jerusalem belongs to the end, or whether it expresses what, under the Christian