p. 4 | The Revelation by Isaac Williams

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Aug 16, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 32.

The Revelation

By Isaac Williams

THERE is no book which we are so invited to read as the Apocalypse, and that with a blessing attached, "Blessed is he that readeth." And perhaps it might with humility be suggested whether the unearthly beauty of this book, its divine simplicity and pathos, the wonderful arrangement of its parts, its deep and hidden analogies, its secret references to all the other scriptures, and to different parts of itself, the poetical imagery and painting, challenging admiration and setting below it all the works of worldly genius — whether all these things may not be intended to arrest our otherwise unwilling attention to matters so obscure and mysterious, subjects for the most part awful and sad, and truths from which our nature recoils.

There is no book more engaging, even humanly speaking, in its composition: formed of images most striking and beautiful; philosophy clothed in divine language, and replete with hidden harmonies of wisdom; and in its artistic structure so exquisite, that it has been well said, "The very wit and artifice seem not to be human but angelical." The style is such that men might speak of it as they did of the prophet Ezekiel, "as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice." There is no book which so repays the study of it from the manner in which it is interwoven throughout with all the other scriptures, illustrating them and deriving light from them, and amply repaying all care and research with knowledge that satisfies. All these things seem as if they were intended to engage our attention in this book. And the same reasons of wisdom and goodness for which the Holy Spirit has so strongly invited us to this study, have no doubt induced the evil one to direct his arts to draw us away from it. Nor is it strange that he who has labored to render the sacrament of divine love the great cause of strife in Christendom, should lead men to make this wisdom of God to appear "foolishness," and this His guide for the dark days to be darkness itself.—Isaac Williams, 1889.