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the pilgrims invariably make them refer to the cities instead. No crown
of life is promised to the town of Smyrna and its commerce, but to the
handful of Christians who formed its "church." If they were "faithful
unto death," they have their crown now--but no amount of faithfulness and
legal shrewdness combined could legitimately drag the city into a
participation in the promises of the prophecy. The stately language of
the Bible refers to a crown of life whose lustre will reflect the
day-beams of the endless ages of eternity, not the butterfly existence
of a city built by men's hands, which must pass to dust with the
builders and be forgotten even in the mere handful of centuries
vouchsafed to the solid world itself between its cradle and its grave.
The fashion of delving out fulfillments of prophecy where that prophecy
consists of mere "ifs," trenches upon the absurd. Suppose, a thousand
years from now, a malarious swamp builds itself up in the shallow harbor
of Smyrna, or something else kills the town; and suppose, also, that
within that time the swamp that has filled the renowned harbor of Ephesus
and rendered her ancient site deadly and uninhabitable to-day, becomes
hard and healthy ground; suppose the natural consequence ensues, to wit:
that Smyrna becomes a melancholy ruin, and Ephesus is rebuilt. What
would the prophecy-savans say? They would coolly skip over our age of
the world, and say: "Smyrna was not faithful unto death, and so her crown
of life was denied her; Ephesus repented, and lo! her candle-stick was
not removed. Behold these evidences! How wonderful is prophecy!"
Smyrna has been utterly destroyed six times. If her crown of life had
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