tion of Saint John — has a special suggestiveness in connection with this nineteenth century. In the opening To-day's lesson. of the Sixth Seal, typical of six thousand years since Adam, there is one distinctive feature which has special reference to the present age.
Revelation xii. 1. And there appeared a great wonder in Heaven, — a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.
Heaven represents harmony, and Divine Science interprets the Principle of heavenly harmony. The great Human botany. miracle, to human sense, is divine Love. One of the grand necessities of existence is to gain the true idea of what constitutes the Kingdom of Heaven in the affections of man. This can never be reached while we hate our brother, or entertain a false estimate of whom God has appointed to voice this idea. Again, without a clear and correct sense of its idea, we can never assimilate the divine Principle. The botanist must know the genus and species of a plant, in order to classify it correctly; and as it is with the plant, so is it with man.
Abuse of the motives and character of Paul hid from new the remarkable nature of the apostle, which made Motives abused. him equal to so great a mission. Persecution, of whomsoever spoke something new and better of God, not only obscured the light of the ages, but was fatal to the persecutor. Why? Because it hid from them the true idea which was presented. To misunderstand Paul, was to be ignorant of the divine idea he taught; and this lesser ignorance betrayed at once a greater ignorance as to its Principle, — ignorance
