n their
loyalty to Christ, if the world which had slain Him fawned upon them.
The Christian may conclude he is reckoned a helpless and harmless foe if
he suffers no persecution, if in no company he is frowned upon or felt
to be uncongenial, if he is treated by the world as if its aims were his
aims and its spirit his spirit. No faithful follower of Christ who mixes
with society can escape every form of persecution. It is the seal which
the world puts on the choice of Christ. It is proof that a man's
attachment to Christ and endeavour to forward His purposes have been
recognised by the world. Persecution, then, should be welcome as the
world's testimony to the disciple's identity with Christ.

No idea had fixed itself more deeply in the mind of John than this of
the identity of Christ and His people. As he brooded upon the life of
Christ and sought to penetrate to the hidden meanings of all that
appeared on the surface, he came to see that the unbelief and hatred
with which He was met was the necessary result of goodness presented to
worldliness and selfishness. And as time went on he saw that the
experience of Christ was exceptional only in degree, that His experience
was and would be repeated in every one who sought to live in His Spirit
and to do His will. The future of the Church accordingly presented
itself to him as a history of conflict, of extreme cruelty on the part
of the world and quiet conquering endurance on the part of Christ's
people. And it was this which he embodied in the Book of Revelation.
This book he wrote as a kind of detailed commentary on the passage
before us, and in it he intended to depict the sufferings and final
conquest of the Church. The one book is a reflex and supplement to the
other; and as in the Gospel he had shown the unbelief and cruelty of the
world against Christ, so in the Revelation he shows in a series of
strongly coloured pictures how the Church of Christ would pass through
the same experience, would be persecuted as Christ was persecuted, but
would ultimately conquer. Both books are wrought out with extreme care
and finished to the minutest detail, and both deal with the cardinal
matters of human history--sin, righteousness, and the final result of
their conflict. Underneath all that appears on the surface in the life
of the individual and in the history of the race there are just these
abiding elements--sin and righteousness. It is the moral value of things
which in the long