was the garland of splendid buildings with the Street of Gold, which encircled the rounded hill Pagos.

Apollonius in a fully expressed comparison advised the citizens to prefer a crown of men to a crown of

buildings. This Author leaves one member of the figure to be understood: if we expressed his thought in

full, it would be "instead of the crown of buildings which you boast of, or the crown of men that your

philosophers recommend, I will give you the crown of life."

The peroration of each of the Seven Letters is modelled in the same way: all contain a claim for attention and

a promise. The former is identical in all Seven Letters: he that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to

the Churches. The latter is different in every case, being adapted to the special character of each.

The claim for attention, which is made in the peroration of every letter, is perhaps to be understood as in

part applying to the whole Apocalypse, but in a much greater degree it applies to the advice and reproof and

encouragement contained in the individual letter and in the whole Seven Letters. There was less need to

press for attention to the vision of victory and triumph, while there was serious need to demand attention to

the letter, with its plain statement of the dangers to which the Church was exposed. Hence, while the claim is

identical in all, it is specially needed in each letter.

The promise made to the victors at the end of every letter is to be understood as addressed partly to the

Christians of the city, but still more to the true Christians of the entire Church. The idea that the individual

Church is part of the Universal Church, that it stands for it after the usual symbolic fashion of the

Apocalypse, is never far from the writer's mind; and he passes rapidly between the two points of view, the

direct address to the local Church as an individual body with special needs of its o wn, and the general

application and apostrophe to the entire Church as symbolised by the particular local Church.

There is a difference among the letters in regard to the arrangement of the peroration: in the first three the

claim for attention comes before the promise, in the last four it comes after. It must remain doubtful whether

there is any special intention in this, beyond a certain tendency in the writer towards employing variety as a

literary device. Almost every little variation and turn in these letters, however, is carefully studied; and

probably it is through deliberate intention that they are divided by this variation into two classes; but what

is the reason for the division, and the principle involved in it, is hard to say. The first three ranked also as

the three greatest cities of the Province, vying with one another for the title "First of Asia," which all three

claimed. In the general estimation of the world, and in their own, they formed a group apart (compare Figure

10, chapter 14), while the others were second-rate. Probably there was a set of seven leading cities in public

estimation, as we saw in chapter 14; and certainly there was within that set a narrower and more famous

group of three. It may be that this difference almost unconsciously affected the writer's expression and

produced a corresponding variation in the form, though the variation apparently conveys no difference in

force or meaning, but is purely literary and formal.

An attempt has been made to explain the variation on t he ground that the first three Churches are regarded

as having on the whole been faithful, though with faults and imperfections; whereas the last four have been

faithless for the most part, and only a "remnant" is acknowledged in them as faithful. But, while that is true

of three out of the four, yet Philadelphia is praised very highly, with almost more thoroughness than any

even of the first three, except Smyrna; and it is the only Church to which the Divine Author says "I have

loved thee."

So far as grouping can be detected among the Seven Churches, it would rather appear that they are placed

in pairs. Ephesus and Sardis go together; so again Smyrna and Philadelphia, Pergamum and Thyatira; while

the distant Laodicea stands by itself, far away in the land of Phrygia. Ephesus and Sardis have both

changed and deteriorated; but in Ephesus the change amounts only to a loss of enthusiasm which is still

perhaps recoverable; in Sardis the deterioration has deepened into death. Smyrna and Philadelphia are

praised far more unreservedly than the rest; both are poor and weak; both have suffered from the Jews; but

both are full of life and vigour, now and forever. Pergamum and Thyatira have both been strongly affected

by Nicolaitanism; both are compared and contrasted with the Imperial power; and both are promised victory