critics, and which regards it as a forecast of the struggle then impending between the Church under the headship of Christ and the civil power under the emperor of Rome, though this view need not be accepted as excluding the second theory, which regards it as a forecast of the struggle of the Church with the world till the cup of the world’s iniquity is full and the day of its doom is come.  The book appears to have been written on the occurrence of some fierce persecution at the hands of the civil power, and its object to confirm and strengthen the Church in her faith and patience by a series of visions, culminating in one of the Lamb seated on the throne of the universe as a pledge that all His slain ones would one day share in His glory.

REVELS, MASTER OF THE, also called LORD OF MISRULE, in olden times an official attached to royal and noble households to superintend the amusements, especially at Christmas time; he was a permanent officer at the English court from Henry VIII.’s reign till George III.’s, but during the 18th century the office was a merely nominal one.

REVERBERATORY FURNACE, a furnace with a domed roof, from which the flames of the fire are reflected upon the vessel placed within.

REVERE, PAUL, American patriot, born in Boston, U.S., bred a goldsmith; conspicuous for his zeal against the mother-country, and one of the first actors in the revolt (1735-1818).

REVEREND, a title of respect given to the clergy, Very Reverend to deans, Right Reverend to bishops, and Most Reverend to archbishops.

REVILLE, ALBERT, a distinguished French Protestant theologian, born at Dieppe; was from 1851 to 1872 pastor at Rotterdam, in 1880 became professor of the History of Religions in the College of France, and six years later was made President of the Section des Etudes Religieuses at the Sorbonne, Paris; has been a prolific writer on such subjects as “The Native Religions of Mexico and Peru” (Hibbert Lectures for 1884), “Religions of Non-civilised Peoples,” “The Chinese Religion,” &c.; b. 1826.

REVIVAL OF LETTERS, revival in Europe in the 15th century of the study of classical, especially Greek, literature, chiefly by the arrival in Italy of certain learned Greeks, fugitives from Constantinople on its capture by the Turks in 1453, and promoted, by the invention of printing, to the gradual extinction of the dry, barren scholasticism previously in vogue.  See RENAISSANCE.

REVIVAL OF RELIGION, a reawakening of the religious consciousness after a period of spiritual dormancy, ascribed by many to a special outpouring of the Spirit in answer to prayer, and in connection with evangelical preaching.

REVOLUTION, a sudden change for most part in the constitution of a country in consequence of internal revolt, particularly when a monarchy is superseded by a republic, as in France in 1789, in 1848, and 1870, that in 1830 being merely from one branch of the Bourbon family to another, such as that also in England in 1658.  The French Revolution of 1798 is the revolution by pre-eminence, and the years 1848-49 were years of revolutions in Europe.