and bigoted rabble who opposed any innovation and disliked "foreigners" and "foreign gods" on principle, selfish artisans, like Demetrius, who found that Christianity interfered with their trade-all these were waiting their chance to attack the followers of Christ. At last their time had come! Though the persecution was not authorized by the imperial government, and was not directed against the Christians as such (that is, because they were believers in Christ), yet its results were almost as serious in some places as if it had begun with an edict from the Emperor.

The Book of Revelation.-Naturally, the persecution was most severe in places where Christianity had been recently established, where the Christians were not very well known or their religion generally understood. Such were some of the cities in the province of Asia. Paul had spent three years at Ephesus, from 52 to 55, and from this headquarters his assistants had gone out to establish the church in nearby cities. Perhaps some of the country towns had been evangelized by persons who had gone up to Ephesus, heard Paul and been won to Christ, and then returned to spread the message and share the new life in Christ with their old neighbors and friends. Such a man, perhaps, was Philemon of Colossæ. It was in these small, new, but growing churches of western Asia Minor that the persecution now raged.

There is a book in the New Testament, called the Apocalypse, or Revelation, of John, which contains some letters addressed about this time to Christians in the chief cities of this region; and there are also other references in the volume to the persecution under Nero. The form in which we have the book to-day is later in date, for it was probably edited, with the addition of

THE LAST PRAYER

much new material, toward the end of the reign of Domitian (81-96) when still another persecution had broken out. But these older sections of the book are useful as showing us what the Christians felt and thought when they found themselves threatened with death on account of their faith.

A vision of the Son of Man.-The original work was written by a Christian called John-some say the apostle John. The author had been banished to the rocky, desolate island of Patmos, one of the Cyclades, forty miles southwest of the harbor of Miletus. There on a Lord's day (the Christian Sunday, not the Jewish Sabbath) he was "in the Spirit" and saw a wondrous vision which he was commanded to "write in a book" and send it to the seven churches of Asia-at Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.

The account of his vision is as follows:

"And I turned to see the voice which spake with me. And having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands; and in the midst of the lampstands the 'One like unto a Son of man,' clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the breast with a golden girdle. His head and his hair were white as white wool, like snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; and his feet like unto burnished brass, as if it had been refined in a furnace; and his voice was as the voice of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars; out of his mouth proceeded a sharp, two-edged sword; and his countenance was like the sun shining in full strength.

"When I saw him I fell at his feet as one dead. But he laid his right hand upon me and said: 'Fear not. I am the First and the Last, and the Living One. I became dead, and behold, I am alive unto

the ages of ages, and I hold the keys of Death and of Hades. Write therefore the things you have seen, and the things that are now, and shall be hereafter: the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.' ” -Revelation 1: 12-20.

The "One like unto a Son of man" is of course Jesus, whom the Christians expected to return in glory at any moment (see Acts 1:11; 1 Thessalonians 4:16; 2 Thessalonians 2:8). The term had been used in the Old Testament (Daniel 7: 13), and was now understood to mean the Messiah; indeed, Jesus himself had so used it (Mark 14:62). For John, the coming of Jesus as the Son of man in glory, that is, as the heavenly Messiah, was the only hope of salvation and rescue from persecution for himself and his fellow Christians.

"Behold, he comes with the clouds;
And every eye shall see him,

Even they that pierced him,

And all the tribes of earth shall mourn because of him.

Even so. Amen."

-Revelation 1:7.

But the greatest significance of his vision was that Jesus, himself, even now "in glory," stands in the midst of his persecuted churches, the Son of Man amid the golden lampstands, and holds in the hollow of his mighty hand his suffering but faithful followers.

The seven letters.-Now follow the epistles to the seven churches, as messages from their divine Lord, to accompany the narrative of the vision. The churches were located in cities lying roughly in a circle north and east of Ephesus, on the main highways of the province,