THE SACRED PRECIOUS STONES.
IN the twenty-first chapter of Revelation we find a glowing description of the city of God, the New Jerusalem. If we look upon the description as exclusively metaphorical, as is done by the great mass of professed Bible teachers, and spiritualize away this city into aerial nothingness, how unmeaning, yea, even bordering upon folly, do these minute descriptions appear. But if we take it as it is evidently designed to be understood in its natural and obvious signification, and look upon the city, as the Revelator evidently designed we should look upon it, as a literal and tangible abode, our glorious inheritance, whose beauties we are to look upon with our own eyes, how is the glory of the scene enhanced! It is in this light, though it is not for mortal man to conceive of the grandeur of those things that God has prepared for those that love him, that we delight to contemplate the glimpses that he has given us in his word of our future abode. We love to dwell upon those descriptions which convey to our minds as well as language can do it, an idea of the loveliness and beauty which shall characterize our eternal home. And as we become absorbed in the contemplation of an inheritance tangible and sure, our courage springs up anew, hope revives, faith plumes her wings, and with a feeling of thanksgiving to God that he has placed it in our power to gain an entrance to the mansions of the redeemed, we resolve again that we will, in spite of the world and its obstacles, be among the sharers of the proffered joy. Let us then take a look at the precious foundation stones of that great city, through whose gates of pearl we hope soon to enter. Concerning them we gather from various authorities the following items: The first foundation, we read, [verse 19,] was a JASPER. The jasper is described as a "precious stone of various colors, as purple, cerulean, green, &c." Greenfield. "Mostly green." Robinson. Says Dr. Clarke, "The jasper is usually defined a hard stone, of a beautiful bright green color, sometimes clouded with white and spotted with red or yellow." THE SECOND, SAPPHIRE. Sapphire is "a precious stone of a blue color in various shades, next in hardness and value to the diamond." Greenfield, Robinson. The sapphire "is a very bright gem, properly of pure blue." Cobbin. "Perfectly transparent." Clarke. "Of a beautiful azure or sky-blue color, almost as transparent and glittering as a diamond." Stuart. THE THIRD, A CHALCEDONY. This is a genus of semipellucid gems, of which there are four species. The most common of sort is a bluish white.—Clarke. "The name of a gem generally of a whitish, bluish, or smoky-green color, susceptible of a high and beautiful polish." Greenfield. Some editions of the Greek Testament according to both Greenfield and Robinson, read, carbuncle, instead of a chalcedony. Chambers in his "Information," Vol. I, classes this with the sapphire, ruby, &c. He says, "The garnet, another well known mineral, belongs to the same section. . . . The most valuable is the precious garnet, almondine, or carbuncle, which is commonly a transparent, red and beautiful mineral." "The carbuncle, from the Heb. barak, to lighten, glitter, or glister, is a very elegant gem of a deep red color, with an admixture of scarlet. From its bright lively color, it had the name, carbunculus, which signifies a little coal; and among the Greeks, anthrax, a coal; because when held before the sun it appears like a bright burning charcoal." Clarke. THE FOURTH, AN EMERALD. A gem of a pure green color. Greenf. "It is one of the most beautiful of all the gems, and is of a bright green color, without any other mixture." Clarke. "The emerald is one of the most esteemed (gems) being of a beautiful green color, and occurring in prismatic crystals." Chambers. THE FIFTH, SARDONYX. "A gem exhibiting the color of the carnelian, and the white of the chalcedony, intermingled, either in shades or alternate layers." Greenf. "A precious stone exhibiting a milk white variety of the onyx, or chalcedony, intermingled with shades or stripes of sardian or carnelian." Rob'n. Carnelian is of a flesh color. THE SIXTH, SARDIUS. A sardine or carnelian, a precious stone of blood red, and sometimes flesh color. Greenf. "More commonly known as the carnelian." Rob'n. The same as the ruby; and when of a size from two to six carats, and of the "fine deep cochineal red, so much prized, it falls little short of the diamond in value." Chambers. THE SEVENTH, CHRYSOLYTE. "The golden stone, a name applied by the ancients to all gems of a golden or yellow color, but probably designating particularly the topaz of the moderns." Rob'n. "The chrysolyte is of a beautiful yellow color, and is so called by the ancients from its looking like a golden stone." Cobbin. THE EIGHTH, BERYL. "A precious stone of a sea-green color." Greenf. "The beryl is of a bluish green, and very brilliant." Cobbin. "Beryl differs little from the emerald except in color—the latter name embracing the green varieties, the former all those that are tinged less or more with yellow or blue." Chambers. THE NINTH, A TOPAZ. "A gem of a yellowish green color." Greenf. Different authors vary somewhat in their descriptions of this gem. Robinson's Gr. Lex. calls it a transparent gem of a golden or orange color; not the green topaz of Pliny, which seems to be the modern chrysolyte." "A topaz, a precious stone of a pale dead green, with a mixture of yellow." Clarke. "The topaz also presents various shades between yellow and wine color." Chambers. "The topaz of the present day seems to be reckoned as yellow, but that of the ancients appears to have been green." Stuart. THE TENTH, A CHRYSOPRASUS. "A chrysoprasus, a species of gem of a golden green color, like that of a leek." Greenf. "Greenish yellow." Cobbin. "Its color is commonly apple green, and often extremely beautiful." Cleaveland. THE ELEVENTH, A JACINTH. "A gem of the color of the hyacinth flower, which is a deep purple or reddish blue." Rob'n. "A precious stone of a dead red with a mixture of yellow. It is the same as the hyacenet, or cinnamon stone." Clarke. THE TWELFTH, AN AMETHYST. "A gem of a deep purple or violet color." Greenf. "Amethyst is a pure rock-crystal, of a purplish-violet color, and of great brilliancy." Chambers. "In looking over these various classes," says Stuart, "we find the first four to be of a green or bluish cast; the fifth and sixth of a red or scarlet; the seventh, yellow; the eighth, ninth and tenth, of different shades of the lighter green; the eleventh and twelfth of a scarlet or splendid red. There is classification therefore in the arrangement; a mixture not dissimilar to the rainbow, with the exception that it is more complex." Of what scene is it possible for man to conceive more magnificently grand and beautiful. In view of our heirship to such a mansion as this, all the charms of earth, "the boasted trophies that man doth rear," even the world itself, could we possess it all, vanish as nothing from our view. We speak of the realms of the blest.
That country so bright and so fair;
And oft are its glories confessed;
But what must it be to be there?"