THERE lies an island, stern, barren, and rocky in the Aegean Sea, a forlorn and lonely environment, indeed, one where there would seem little to live for. For one deprived of home, friends, comforts— the things tending to make human life interesting and pleasant—all human hope of happiness or opportunity for achievement apparently would be cut off, were he banished to such a place. The name of this island is Patmos, and one authority gives the meaning of Patmos as, "I am squeezed to pieces;" or in common parlance, "I have gone all to pieces; my spirit is broken," sayings indicating shattered experiences and broken lives, marooned on an isle of sorrowful human experience in the sea of mortal mind.
Yet, it was on this lonely isle where heaven came down to earth, and marvelous events of Spirit were revealed; where the veil of mortal thought was lifted upon the substance of things unseen by the material eye, but discerned through spiritual sense. Here, where nothing of import appeared to be happening outwardly, divinity was impressing itself upon the pure consciousness of the exiled apostle, St. John, causing the mysteries of material existence to yield to the realism of spiritual Truth, and matter to give place to the radiance of glorified being.
Where all appeared barren and forlorn to the evidence of the senses, the Revelator's transparent consciousness was made rich and fertile with divine ideas; the gates of paradise were opened, and what a sight greeted him! The wonders of the spiritual universe were emblazoned upon his uplifted thought. Beyond material law and the finite concepts of the human mind appeared to St. John the perfection of being, New Jerusalem, even divine Science, in the sublime light of which, he declared, kings and nations would lay down their worldly glory and honor. Mary Baker Eddy thus summarizes the holy vision of the Revelator in her book "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 30): "St. John spiritually discerned and revealed the sum total of transcendentalism. He saw the real earth and heaven. They were spiritual, not material; and they were without pain, sin, or death."
