xin. THE GATES OF PEARL. 223 



Why should they be composed each of one pearl, 

 of a substance that is intimately connected with the 

 sea, whose associations bring the mind out of the 

 shadow of the inland mountains to the shores of 

 the open ocean, and from the lonely sanctuary of a 

 secluded race to the wide and busy parliament of the 

 world? I believe that a special emphasis is placed 

 upon this remarkable feature of the heavenly vision. 

 Let us examine it particularly then, and we shall find 

 that it is full of precious significance. 



i. The first point of consideration is the number of 

 the gates. There were twelve of these gates ; three on 

 the east, three on the north, three on the south, and 

 three on the west. What a contrast does this feature 

 of the heavenly city present to the narrowness and 

 exclusiveness of the old Jewish polity ! The Jews were 

 the hermits of the human race. They were kept apart 

 from all other nations on the high plateau which had 

 walls of mountain, desert, river-trench, and stormy sea 

 hemming them in on every side. It was considered 

 unlawful for a Jew to keep company with or come in to 

 one of another nation. The people prided themselves 

 on their exclusive privileges as the favourites of heaven, 

 and pushed to an extreme the restrictions of their 

 religion. Even St. John himself could not altogether 

 divest his mind of his Jewish prejudices. He could 

 hardly yet realize the idea that the world was greater 

 in God's eyes than Judaea ; that the Church of Christ 

 was to be one in which the Jew was to have no ex- 

 clusive privileges and the Gentile to be subject to no 



