Sermons Author:Phillips Brooks Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: m. HOMAGE AND DEDICATION. " And the four and twenty elders fall down before Him that sat on the throne, and worship Him that liveth for ever and ever, and ... more »cast their crowns before the throne."—Revelation iv. 10. It is impossible for the mind to conceive of a more majestic picture than is presented in this fourth chapter of the Book of Revelation. The Church of Christ, with all her labors done and all her warfare over, stands at length in heaven, before the throne of Him whose servant she has been, and renders up her trust and gives all the glory back to Him. When we hear such a scene described in the few words of John's poetic vision, I think we are met with a strange sort of difficulty. The great impression of the picture is so glorious that we are afraid to touch it with too curious fingers, to analyze its meaning and get at its truth. At the same time we feel sure that there is in it a precise and definitely shaped truth which is blurred to us by the very splendor of the poetry in which it is enveloped. We see on the one hand how often the whole significance of some of the noblest things in Scripture is lost and ruined by people who take hold of them with hard, prosaic hands. Their poetry is necessary to their truth. On the other hand, we see how many of the mostsacred truths of revelation float always before many people's eyes in a mere vague halo of mystical splendor, because they never come boldly up to them as Moses went up to the burning bush, to see what they are, and what are the laws by which they act. Shall we interpret the poetry of Scripture into ordinary language or not? No one reads the commentaries without feeling that often it would be better not to do so ; but no one sees how many of the false religious ideas and superstitions have come of an intense an...« less