I continue here with Christina Rossetti’s The Face of the Deep: A Devotional Commentary on the Apocalypse (London: SPCK, 1892). The other entries are found in the Poetry category in the right column.
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3. Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein, for the time is at hand.
“Understandest thou what thou readest?” asked Philip the Deacon of the Ethiopian Eunuch. And he said, “How can I, except some man should guide me?” Whereupon flowed forth to him the stream of light, knowledge, and love. Yet not then did his illumination commence: it already was his in a measure to enjoy, respond to, improve, even before his father in God preaced Christ unto him. What could he do before that moment? He could study and pray, he could cherish hope, exercise love, feel after Him Whom as yet he could not intelligently find.
So much at least we all can do who read, or who hear, this Book of Revelations: thus claiming, and by God’s bounty inheriting, the covenanted blessing of such readers and hearers. Any who pray and love enjoy already no stinted blessing. Even the will to love is love.Continue reading “The Face of the Deep (1.3)”