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The book of futurity is what was sealed with seven seals. It is a dark and mysterious one for us also. The future is closed to us, and must remain so. How foolish the wish to raise this thick veil. Every joy, being foreseen, would lose its attraction; every pain and loss would become an insufferable torture. Through God's grace the future is hid from us; and they are foolish who pretend to proclaim it. And yet the seals are broken. The Lion of the tribe of Judah has come to open the book and break its seals. Fate is no longer cruel darkness to us Christians. Whatever darkness may lie before our feet, at every step which we take into the future the guiding stars shine above us, and at our side stands the faithful guide. And how do these holy superscriptions of our life run?

1. We read first the words, Walk before God. In everything that thou doest, ask what is good, what is true before God. How does He speak to thee by His voice, conscience? You bear in yourselves the dominion over all that approaches from without, whether with allurements or threats. You bear in yourselves the measure of things.

2. Perceive, then, this the second inscription and precept of life. It is: "All things are yours!" The Divine and exalted right of man over all creatures is here proclaimed to us. And this includes his freedom and his dominion — the freedom of his soul from the outer world, and the dominion of his spirit over it. Is it not, then, you who turn misfortune into prosperity, and acquire strength in trial, and in exercising patience learn courage and self-conquest, the highest work of man? Is it not you who ennoble good fortune, and place it in the service of the Spirit, and use it in order to lead yourselves farther, and to lessen the want round about you, and to fashion everything that is near you into a life worthy of man?

3. Now you perceive, in fine, the third superscription of the book of life: "The fruit of the Spirit is love!" It puts forth, perhaps, many and beautiful flowers, and the powerful stem raises itself and extends its wide shadowing branches over the extent of the earth; but the ripe fruit of the Spirit is love, and that alone. We feel, everything else is only falling flowers, only brilliant appearance; love alone remains. We feel it is cold, and solitary, and joyless in the world without love. And our liberty and moral power also against the world and fate, how can we preserve them if we stand not firmly bound together in the fellowship of the brethren? — one extending the hand to the other whenever he sinks down, one comforting the other in word and deed when a heavy blow falls upon his head.

(Dr. Schwarz.)

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KJV: And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals.

WEB: I saw, in the right hand of him who sat on the throne, a book written inside and outside, sealed shut with seven seals.