appointed teachers, chosen to make record of the momentous truth on
which the salvation of a lost world hangs. Men, ready to lay down their
lives for the truth, were not the men to play fast and loose with the
Word of God, in deference to a supposed popular sentiment.

Further, our critical friends have assumed to decide for the prophets
that they must prophesy out of their immediate surroundings in such a
marked way, with such continued reference to the events of the period,
that the prophecy must be located in that period. If the critic cannot
find these particular local earmarks, he must push the prophecy to a
point of time with which he can make it synchronize, and which will
satisfy his literary judgment. By this law of determining dates, the
critics claim that the book of Isaiah is a composite work, produced by
different authors and at different times.

On this assumption the latter part of the book of Revelation was not a
revelation to the Apostle John on the Isle of Patmos. The first part of
the book may be adjudged as his. But presently the matter of the book
passes into a realm beyond the time and circumstances that belong to
that period, hence may not claim him as its author. An assumption that
sets aside the claims of Scripture, as to authorship, in order to
harmonize the book with one's literary and critical judgment, may be
dismissed on its own lack of merit.

The proposed law above referred to, as a method of locating prophecy as
to time, or determining the author, is arbitrary, and an absurd attempt
to destroy all the testimony of inspired writers, who have settled the
question of authorship and the date of prophecy.