^ There is a lovely German poem of the Middle Ages, by one Wernher, which has not yet found a translator. It is something like this —
REVELATION ii. 17 107
Thou art mine and I am Thine, I will make Thee sure of that, I will lock Thee in my heart, I will close its outer door, I will lose its little key. Thou canst then no more depart.^
^ In his notes of 1854 Euskin says: "This holding the name in the white stone is very suggestive as well as mysterious. In one sense the White Stone may be the Heart — always a stone, compared to what it ought to be ; yet a white one when it holds Christ (* Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God ')." 2
5. Above all else the white stone is a sign of public honour. It is given to " him that overcometh." And so it has been suggested that the reference is to the gladiatorial combats which were so marked a feature of classic times. They took place in those huge amphitheatres which are to-day more wonderful in their ruins than most modern buildings in their completeness. In them, as in all shows, there were honoured seats, and among these were places for old gladiators, heroes of the arena, who in many a fight had won the title to rest. The diploma of these heroes was a white stone, and on it was engraved the number of the victories its possessor had won and the names of the victims he had slain. So, it has been suggested, when life's long battle is won, Christ will give His heroes (gladiators in a far nobler warfare, gladiators in the struggle with sin) a white stone of victory, a title of admission to a place, and a place of special honour, in the " cloud of witnesses."
He who held this stone was entitled to be supported at the public expense, had free access to all the festivities of the nation, and was regarded as illustrious in all great gatherings. Thus he who wins the moral battle of life will be publicly honoured A crown of glory is prepared for him, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give unto him at that day. He will have free admission into all the honours of eternity.
•|| The Saxon name of the family was originally spelt Livingstone, but the Doctor's father had shortened it by the omission of the final " e." David wrote it for many years in the
^ W. p. Workman, in A Book of Lay Sei'mons^ 156. ^ Ruskin, Fors Clavigera, vii. § 23 ( IForks, xxix. 302).
io8 VICTORY AND INTIMACY
abbreviated form, but about 1857, at his father's request, he restored the original spelling. The siguificance of the original form of the name was not without its influence on him. He used to refer with great pleasure to a note from an old friend and fellow-student, the late Professor George Wilson of Edinburgh, acknowledging a copy of his book in 1857: — "Meanwhile, may your name be propitious; in all your long and weary journeys may the Living half of your title outweigh the other ; till after long and blessed labours, the white stone is given you in the happy land." ^
^ In The Book of the Sparkling Stone the subject is the mysterious stone of which the Spirit says in the Apocalypse : Et ddbo illi (vincenti) calciilum candidum, et in calculo nomen novum scriptum, quod nemo scit nisi qui accepit (Rev. ii. 17). This stone, according to the monk of the forest of Soignes, is the symbol of Christ, given to His loved ones only, and like a flame which images the love of the eternal Word. And then again we have glimpses of those dark shadows of love, from which break forth uninterrupted sobs of light, seen in awful flowers through the gradual expansions of contemplation and above the strange verdure of an unequalled gladness.^
Have you not heard
Of the fair white stone, With its written word
By one soul known,
And the Lord alone ?3
III.
The New Name.
** And upon the stone a new name written, which no on^ knoweth but he that receiveth it."
1. The ideal function of a name is to give an accurate and complete description of the thing that it denotes. Of course names are, practically, very far from performing this function, and the names applied to individuals very often express anything but the truth. But the metaphor of the text is based on the ideal
^ W. G. Blaikie, The Personal Life of David Livingstone (ed. 1880), 2. * M. Maeterlinck, Ruyshroeek and the Mystics, 78. « Emily Hickey.
REVELATION ii. 17 109
name, and not the actual. It is in this way that we are to interpret such phrases as " the name of Jesus " and " the name of God." It means the essential life of Jesus, of God, and all the relations that this life assumes. But we must not fall into the mistake of thinking that the " name " denotes a bundle of abstract qualities, which you may separate from the actual living person. It is rather the person in the totality of his life and its manifesta- tions. The life that manifests the qualities is essential to the name.