The wondrous dimensions of this city set forth the fact that our future home far exceeds in grandeur and extent everything that is looked upon as glorious upon earth.  Who ever heard of a city one thousand and five hundred miles square?  We have had empires so large, but no such cities.  In this representation the city does not encompass the entire earth as she in one sense really does, because it would be impossible thus to represent her and at the same time she be represented as a city within the earth, into which the nations bring their “glory and honor.”  The ancient city of Babylon with its beautiful hanging-gardens, the very triumph of human skill, and the city itself lying in a foursquare, being fifteen miles on each side, was unsurpassed in human loveliness.  But the city of God is represented as fifteen hundred miles square, which dimensions are out of all proportion with anything existing on earth; hence its beauty and magnificence must be ascribed to God only.

“And the building of the wall of it was of jasper:  and the city was pure gold like unto clear glass.”  The jasper is the same crystal gem before mentioned.  What a wondrous wall it must have been!  It was not made of such common material as granite, freestone, or marble, which can make the most imposing structures that human pride can rear, and which are fit for the residence of lofty kings; but it was of jasper, clear as crystal.  Think of the wall of this holy city being nearly three hundred feet high and stretching around the city six thousand miles, all built of the purest diamond!  No stretch of the human imagination can properly compass such a vision.  In rearing earthly structures men seek such material as combine durability, cheapness, beauty, and ease of being wrought.  Look at this wall!  For durability, it has the most indestructible material that can be found on earth.  For beauty, the language of man can not even convey a meagre description of its amazing loveliness.  For cheapness—­God’s riches were inexhaustible, hence it was not necessary to take this into consideration.  For ease of being wrought—­think of the vast amount of labor it requires to cut and shape even one large diamond, it being said to require in some cases years of incessant toil; yet God could afford to build the wall of this city of such material.  Oh, wonders of God’s handiwork!  How inexpressibly glorious!  This, my dear reader, symbolizes the priceless worth of our eternal home, secured through the atonement.  Study the plan of redemption.  There is nothing equal to it in the universe.  “What is a man profited, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

Men become greatly agitated over the announcement of the discovery of gold in the Klondyke, in the Australian continent, in California, and with feverish excitement they abandon their homes and rush headlong to the reputed El Dorado, fearing neither famine, storms, deserts, nor the icy northern blasts.  But all the gold ever mined from the bowels of the earth is insignificant and forms no comparison with the representation of this city.  Its streets and mansions were built, not of common cement, lumber, nor even granite and marble, but of pure gold.