the Aegean sea, near the coast of Asia Minor, its greatest length from
north to south being about ten miles, and its greatest breadth six. To
this lonely place, according to Jerome and others, John was exiled
during the reign of the tyrant Domitian, in A.D. 95. The reason of his
banishment is given--"For the word of God, and for the testimony of
Jesus Christ." Having confined him to this barren spot, the emperor no
doubt thought he had effectually cleared the world of this preacher of
righteousness. Doubtless the persecutors of John Bunyan[2] thought the
same when they had him shut up in Bedford jail. But when men think the
truth is dead and buried out of sight, God suddenly gives it a
resurrection with thirty-fold greater glory. It was so in this case. The
giving of the book of Revelation--the writing on this spot of the
history of the church in advance--has changed the name of this rocky
island from deepest infamy to one of sacred interest and holy
recollections. The death of Domitian occurred in A.D. 96, and his
successor, the humane Nerva, recalled those who had been exiled because
of their faithfulness to Christianity; and John returned to Ephesus,
where he spent the remainder of his days, dying a natural death at the
advanced age of about one hundred years.

[Footnote 2: John Bunyan (1628-1688) was a Puritan. After the
restoration of the Stuarts to the throne, at the close of the English
Revolution and the failure of the Commonwealth, he was imprisoned for
twelve years "on account of non-conformity to the established worship."
It was during this dreary confinement that he wrote his "Pilgrim's
Progress," the most admirable allegory in English literature.]

The humble manner in which John speaks of himself is affectionate. He
does not represent himself to the churches as some great apostle or
prophet, but as "your brother and companion in tribulation," a sharer