a small, desolate, rocky island in the Aegean sea, near the coast of Asia Minor, its greatest length from north to south being about ten miles, and its greatest breadth six.  To this lonely place, according to Jerome and others, John was exiled during the reign of the tyrant Domitian, in A.D. 95.  The reason of his banishment is given—­“For the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.”  Having confined him to this barren spot, the emperor no doubt thought he had effectually cleared the world of this preacher of righteousness.  Doubtless the persecutors of John Bunyan[2] thought the same when they had him shut up in Bedford jail.  But when men think the truth is dead and buried out of sight, God suddenly gives it a resurrection with thirty-fold greater glory.  It was so in this case.  The giving of the book of Revelation—­the writing on this spot of the history of the church in advance—­has changed the name of this rocky island from deepest infamy to one of sacred interest and holy recollections.  The death of Domitian occurred in A.D. 96, and his successor, the humane Nerva, recalled those who had been exiled because of their faithfulness to Christianity; and John returned to Ephesus, where he spent the remainder of his days, dying a natural death at the advanced age of about one hundred years.

[Footnote 2:  John Bunyan (1628-1688) was a Puritan.  After the restoration of the Stuarts to the throne, at the close of the English Revolution and the failure of the Commonwealth, he was imprisoned for twelve years “on account of non-conformity to the established worship.”  It was during this dreary confinement that he wrote his “Pilgrim’s Progress,” the most admirable allegory in English literature.]

The humble manner in which John speaks of himself is affectionate.  He does not represent himself to the churches as some great apostle or prophet, but as “your brother and companion in tribulation,” a sharer with them in the trials and the persecutions that they were all called upon to endure.  He also testified that he was “in the kingdom and patience of Christ,” of which we will speak more hereafter.

It was on the first day of the week, or the Lord’s day, that the vision recorded in this chapter was given John, while he was “in the Spirit,” or under the influence of the spirit of prophecy.  He was commanded to write in a book the things that he saw and to send it unto the seven churches of Asia.  It is important to bear in mind the fact that these visions are things that John saw, all the actors and events passing before him as a moving panorama—­the most stupendous scene that human eyes have ever beheld, containing the future political history of various nations and kingdoms and also the history of the church in her different phases from the beginning until the final consummation.  Of the seven churches we will speak more particularly hereafter.

    12.  And I turned to see the voice that spake with me.  And being
    turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks;