n the 10,000 Turkish
inhabitants of the modern Pergamos, have received hundreds of copies of
the promise, "_To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden
manna, and will give him a white stone and in the stone a new name
written, which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it._" But
whether the hidden church of Pergamos shine forth or not, Gibbon was
inaccurate in stating, in the face of facts, that "the god of Mohammed
without a rival is invoked in the mosques of Pergamos and Thyatira."
God's providence is as discriminating as his prophecy, though unbelief
may overlook both.

We have noted here instances of the prediction of remarkable destruction
to Sardis, Ephesus, and Laodicea; of continued existence to Pergamos and
Thyatira; let us now note a prediction of remarkable escape and
preservation from the universal doom. If it requires no inspiration to
prophecy destruction--the universal fate of humanity, according to the
Infidel--surely it requires more than human skill to say that any city
shall escape this universal fate, and more than human power to avert
this destruction. Of Philadelphia, but twenty-five miles distant from
the ruins of Sardis, Jesus said, and the Bible records the prophecy: "_I
know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man
can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and
hast not denied my name. Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of
Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will
make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have
loved thee. Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I will also
keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the
world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. Behold, I come quickly:
hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown. Him that
overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God; and he shall go
no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name
of the city of my God, which is New Jerusalem, which cometh down out of
heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name._"

"Philadelphia alone," says Gibbon, "has been saved by prophecy, or
courage. At a distance from the sea, forgotten by the emperors,
encompassed on all sides by the Turks, her valiant sons defended their
religion and their freedom alone for fourscore years, and at length
capitulated with the proudest of the Ottoma