reference to Laodicea; yet it was ordered to be communicated to Laodicea, and read publicly there also.

This singleness of vision is not equally marked on the surface of every letter. In the message to Laodicea,

the thought of the other cities of the group is perhaps apparent; and possibly the obscurity of the Thyatiran

Letter may be due in some degree to the outlook upon the other cities of its group, though a quite sufficient

and more probable reas on is our almost complete ignorance of the special character of that city.

To this singleness of vision, the clearness with which the writer sees each single city, and the directness

with which he addresses himself to each, is due the remarkable variety of character in the whole series. The

Seven Letters were evidently all written together, in the inspiration of one occasion and one purpose; and

yet how different each is from all the rest, in spite of the similarity of purpose and plan and arrangement in

them all! Each of the Seven Churches is painted with a character of its own; and very different futures await

them. The writer surveys them from the point of view of one who believes that natural scenery and

geographical surroundings exercise a strong influence on the character and destiny of a people. He fixes his

eye on the broad features of the landscape. In the relations of sea and land, river and mountains--relations

sometimes permanent, sometimes mutable --he reads the tale of the forces that insensibly mould the minds of

men. Now that is not a book which he that runs may read. It is a book with seven seals, which can be

opened only by long familiarity, earnest patient thought, and the insight given by belief and love. The

reader must have attuned himself to harmony with the city and the natural influences that had made it. St.

John from his lofty standpoint could look forward into the future, and see what should come to each of his

He assumes always that the Church is, in a sense, the city. The local Church does not live apart from the

locality and the population, amid which it has a mere temporary abode. The Church is all that is real in the

city: the rest of the city has failed to reach its true self, and has been arrested in its development. Similarly,

the local Church in its turn has not all attained to its own perfect development: the "angel" is the truth, the

reality, the idea (in Platonic sense) of the Church. Thus in that quaint symbolism the city bears to its Church

the same relation that the Church bears to its angel. But here we are led into subjects that will be more fully

discussed in chapters 6 and 16. For the present we shall only review in brief the varied characters of the

Seven Churches and the Seven Cities, constituting among them an epitome of the Universal Church and of

the whole range of human life.

The note alike in the Church and in the history of Ephesus has been change. The Church was enthusiastic;

but it has been cooling. It has fallen from its high plane of conduct and spirit. And the penalty denounced

against it is that it shall be moved out of its place, unless it recreates its old spirit and enthusiasm: "I have

this against thee that thou didst leave thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen and

repent and do the first works; or else I come to thee, and will move thy lamp out of its place." And, similarly,

in the history of the city the same note is distinct. An extraordinary series of changes and vicissitudes had

characterised it, and would continue to do so. Mutability was the law of its being. The land and the site of

the city had varied from century to century. What was water became land; what was city ceased to be

inhabited; what was bare hillside and cultivated lowland became a great city crowded with a teeming

population; what was a harbour filled with the shipping of the whole world has become a mere inland sea of

reeds, through which the wind moans with a vast volume of sound like the distant waves breaking on a long

stretch of sea-coast in storm.

The distinctive note of the letter to Smyrna is faithfulness that gives life, and appearance bettered by reality.

The Church "was dead and lived," like Him who addressed it: it was poor, but rich: it was about to suffer for

a period, but the period is definite, and the suffering comes to an end, and the Church will prove faithful

through it all and gain "the crown of life." Such also had the city been in history: it gloried in the title of the

faithful friend of Rome, true to its great ally alike in danger and in prosperity. The conditions of nature amid

which it was planted were firm and everlasting. Before it was an arm of the vast, unchanging, unconquerable

sea, its harbour and the source of its life and strength. Behind it rose its Hill (Pagos) crowned with the

fortified acropolis, as one looks at it from the front apparently only a rounded hillock of 450 feet elevation;