10. And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.

II. And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God,

12. Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen. 13. And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?

14. And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

This multitude was clothed with white robes, showing their purity, their freedom from sin, their redemption by the blood of Christ. They had palms in their hands, as emblems of victory over sin and trouble in the world from which they had come. WORSHIP IN HEAVEN. 1. It is Universal. "The four beasts," "the four and twenty elders," the "many angels round about the throne . . . ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands," "and every creature that is in heaven and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them," and the "great multitude which no man could number," all are worshipping God in universal harmony (Rev. 58, 11, 13; 7: 9, 10).

2. It is Continual. "They rest not day and night,' they serve him day and night in his temple" (Rev. 4:8; 7:15). Eternity itself is not long enough to render thanks for all that our Father has done for us.

3. It is Praise rather than Petition. Faith has been transformed into sight; they have fought the good fight, and have received their reward. Henceforth it is their duty and pleasure to sing the praises of Him who bought them and redeemed them to God out of every nation under heaven.

"Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power (4:11). "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing (5:12). Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen" (Rev. 7: 12).

"And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue, and people, and nation; and hast made us unto our God kings and priests and we shall reign on the earth" (Rev. 5 : 9, 10).

II. THE GREAT TRIBULATION, vs. 13, 14. These are they which came out of great tribulation. This without doubt refers to the persecutions of the Christians, either under Nero or under Domitian (see Lesson IX). We cannot fully understand the picture until we study what had been taking place on earth to prepare them and train them for whatever work God had for them to do in heaven. We have no easily

15. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.

read description of events in the reign of Domitian; but Farrar's description of those in the time of Nero is good for descriptions of either of these persecutions.

On earth these same glorified and rejoicing saints had perished "for the word of God and for the testimony which they held,' some at Jerusalem, some in the provinces, but most of all in the Neronian persecution at Rome. They are impatiently appealing for venge ance and judgment. Hero after hero had fallen in the Christian warfare. Apostle after Apostle had been sent to his dreadful martyrdom. St. Peter had been crucified; St. Paul beheaded; St. James the elder beheaded; St. James, the Bishop of Jerusalem, hurled down and beaten to death; hundreds of others burnt, or tortured, or torn to pieces in the gardens of Nero and in the Roman circus; yet no deliverer flashed from the morning clouds. How long, O Lord, how long!.

"White robes are given them, and they are bidden to wait till the number of the martyrs is complete, till their brethren who are still on earth shall have fulfilled their

course.

"Meanwhile the fire of olden prophecy was rekindled for their inspiration, and they found that the more they were trodden down the more did they feel the conviction of glorious triumph and the exultation of inward peace. They who have an invisible King to sustain them, and a John to utter His messages, may brave the banded forces of secular despotism and religious hatred and may stand undismayed between a Zealot- maddened Jerusalem and a Neronian Rome.

"The whole company are the elect gathered together from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.'

Farrar.

"The Giant with the Wounded Heel." A sermon with this title by Bishop Phillips Brooks gives a picture of the relation of persecution, tribulation, to the final victory over sin and evil. He takes the text Gen. 3: 15, "And I [the Lord] will put enmity between thee [Satan] and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: it [the seed of the woman] shall bruise thy head, and thou [Satan] shalt bruise his heel."

"Life throws light on the story, and the story throws light on the life. . . . Let us hold it in the light of life, and see its meaning brighten and deepen."

God is represented as speaking to the serpent, the tempter of mankind, the spirit of evil. He is everywhere, then, and always. What does God say? There shall be a long, terrible fight between man and the power of evil; the power of evil shall hunt and persecute man, cripple him, vex him, hinder him, and make him suffer. It shall bruise his heel. But it shall not kill him; at last man shall bruise the serpent's head, shall utterly destroy evil, put it out of existence.

"Look at the great Institutions ! What do we see? Noble principles, vast beneficent agencies, gradually conquering barbarism and misery, making men better, happier; but stung in the heel by the serpents of selfishness, and sordidness, and insincerity and narrowness; just the picture of the Giant with the Wounded Heel. The serpent is stinging at the heel which must ultimately be set upon the serpent's head, and crush it.

"The work of the religious life will be done, but under perpetual opposition, done with torn and bleeding hands and feet."

III. THE REWARD OF THE FAITHFUL, vs. 15-17. Notice what is given as the first of these rewards, Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple. The reward of faithfulness in the parables was a larger duty, "thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things" (Matt. 25: 21). The reward of persecution for worshipping God was the opportunity to worship him in security; the reward for serving him even unto death on the earth was the right and the power to serve him continually in heaven.

He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. The God for whom they suffered and gave their lives will not hold himself aloof, but make his home with them in intimate companionship, - "If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him" (John 14: 23).

16. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.

17. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.

16. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, the two most common causes of suffering in this world. They shall have none of the earthly sufferings, "for they shall be filled"; they" shall be satisfied," with "all the fulness of Christ." Neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. This was written to the people of a warm country, and must be read with that fact in mind. Heat in a cold country is beneficent; an over amount of heat in a warm country means death, as is the case even in temperate lands during the hot season. All the descriptions of heaven we must read with a realization of the feelings of the ancients. Thus, "no more sea,' was understandable by those whose best ships were only fitted for pleasant weather sailing; who never attempted winter voyages even on the comparatively calm Mediterranean Sea. It does not mean that the beauty and glory of the sea as we know it shall be lacking in our heavenly home.

17. The Lamb. . . shall feed them. The Master in whose service they suffered and died shall provide for all their wants. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. "And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain "(Rev. 21:4).

Courtesy of W. F. Ottarson.

"The Triumph of Truth Over Evil."
(Henry Brown Fuller.)

"Every image that denotes the purest joy is introduced into this description of the ultimate blessedness of the redeemed. They are clad in white, the wedding garments of a great festivity. Music is the natural utterance of their delight. Nor is this a strained and artificial expression. It is full-toned chorus; it is hearty praise; it is jubilant adoration. And as that doxology of the Redeemer waxes louder and fuller, the very pillars and arches of heaven are tremulous with joy. Divested of all that is tropical and symbolical in form, the one idea conveyed to us is, that the climacteric of redemption is full, irrepressible, eternal joy. A religion which falls short of positive and unfailing pleasure, as the ultimate law of life, cannot meet the necessities of humanity. Redemption is an advance on creation. It more than regains what was lost, more than restores what was original. The burden of that heavenly song is salvation, blessing, and thanksgiving. The second Paradise is better than Eden. The joy of man redeemed, restored, and perfected, is greater than that of man in the glory of his innocence." - William Adams.

IV. THE GLORIOUS FUTURE, Rev. 21, 22. We have already seen some of the parts of the future which lies before those who have served God and Christ faithfully on earth. These last two chapters of the Book of the Revelation picture to us the ultimate City of God, when all the kingdoms of this world shall have become the kingdoms of God and of His Christ; when all the thoughts of man shall have come into captivity unto Christ and his teachings.

Whatever the suffering of the world; whatever the sin of the world; whatever the failure of Christians to make the world better; we have the absolute assurance from what our eyes can see, that Christ's prayer is being answered, that His kingdom is coming, and His will shall yet be done on earth as it is in heaven. We can stand

beside St. John on Patmos as he looks down the centuries, and while we cannot see with him the kingdom of heaven fully come among the inhabitants of the earth, we can see the increasing signs of its coming, even in the midst of the great tribulation. The new earth is to be the product of the new heaven. As fast and as far as the people on earth become filled with the spirit and life of "the new heaven," so far will the physical world become transformed into a more perfect instrument for the use and work of the higher spiritual life. This means a long and hard fight for the people of God; a material fight against all the hosts of wickedness in high places; and a moral fight against the powers of evil in our own hearts. "We may talk of streets of gold and gates of pearl, but the presence of Christ and the absence of sin will make heaven." Heaven with all its outward glories is the fitting environment for the eternal abode of those who have the heavenly spirit and life. If one seeks merely a heavenly place- the golden streets, the river of peace flowing among fruit trees, the emerald bow about the throne, the jewelled walls and gates of pearl - he is not seeking heaven, nor on the way to heaven, nor can he get there by that road.` It needs the long fight for purity and sinlessness, in the world and in our own hearts.

V. THE PERMANENT MESSAGE OF THE REVELATION. The Revelation was written as a message to the persecuted Christians of the first century after Christ. How far is it a message to us in the twentieth century? God revealed the vision of the opening heavens that all might see what heaven is like, to lead us all to the better world. In God is united perfect goodness, perfect wisdom; to these appertains perfect power. This is the thought that gives the angels strength. This is the inspiration to their work.

"Let us rise to it as St. John rose to it. . . . Let us think of the brave and true men who in other days.. have not counted their lives dear to them, that we might know Him better, and that their land might be a witness of Him, and might be a better inheritance for their sons. Let us think of those whom we have seen battling and suffering in the midst of us, fainting, yet victorious: caring, above all things, that they might show forth the name of Him who is love, and might bear His likeness." Rev. Frederick D. Maurice.

1

Persecution for righteousness' sake is not even yet gone from the world. It is but a few hundred years since many a Christian was tortured in the Inquisition. In heathen countries even to-day many a Christian suffers for his faith in Christ; and even so in lands not heathen, but non-Christian.

Illustration. Not long ago, at the time of one of the Armenian massacres by the Turks, three hundred Armenians were brought together on a field, where they faced a battalion of armed Mohammedan soldiers, ready to fire upon them.

The captain told the Armenians that they could save their lives if they would renounce Christianity and become Mohammedans. They might indicate it by the simple method of holding up their hands. Those who refused were to be immediately shot. Not one Armenian Christian raised his hand, even to save himself from immediate death. The captain in this case was so astonished that he sent the soldiers away and gave release to the Christians for their bravery and their loyalty to Jesus Christ. But millions of Armenians have been as brave, and have lost their lives, even amidst great suffering, for the sake of Christ.

"Oh, may thy soldiers, faithful, true, and bold,
Fight as the saints who nobly fought of old,
And win with them the victor's crown of gold."

Learn by heart the songs of triumph scattered through the Book of Revelation, in order that they may be your song in hours of trial, like the songs Paul and Silas sang in prison, in the midst of their suffering and

in expectation of death.

It is our business to shut away from the world all that defiles, and all wrong of every kind. There could be no heavenly joy with this old earth unchanged, but there are more ways than one of making it new. Take sin out of it, and it would be new enough with no further transformation. Give us new eyes, free from the clogs of earthliness, and there would straightway be new heavens, though every constellation remained what it now is.

"Keep On Dreaming. The most urgent need of the hour is for seers, who, believing in the necessity and the possibility of a new world based on and pervaded by love, can dream it into pictures, as John on Patmos beheld and portrayed the holy city coming down from God out of heaven. Visions fire men's imaginations, kindle their hopes, enlist their loyalties, and call out their resolves. Let fancy, prompted by Christian love, play upon all the situations and circumstances of life you confront. Dream what a household's ways, a school's studies, a factory's work, a farm's life, a community's pleasures, a nation's influence, a church's ministry, would be like were it controlled by such love as was divinely commended to us on Calvary. Count no time wasted spent in building such castles in the air. Suppose they are in the air; that is where they should be, aloft and conspicuous and gradually the foundations of many generations can be raised up to give them solid and substantial substructure. Such gleaming air castles on the horizon are of more actual worth to humanity than all the skyscraping steel edifices that house its present business. Nothing is comparable in value to the ideal made concrete in vision. Men must see what may be before they will determine that it is so good that they will venture their all to make it come true." - The Congregationalist.

The Alice Freeman Palmer Memorial Statue.

When President of Wellesley College, Alice Freeman Palmer said: "God help me to give what He gave-myself, and make that self worth something to somebody; teach me to love all He loved, for the sake of the infinite possibilities locked up in every human soul."

The question we should ask ourselves is, Are we going toward this heavenly ideal? Is this that we are doing, what we should do if we were among the angels and glorified saints?