BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the twenty-fifth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America, the forty-ninth, ALEXANDER SMYTH, of the said district, hath deposited in the office of the Clerk of the District Court for the District of Columbia, the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as author, in the words following, to wit:

"An Explanation of the Apocalypse, or Revelation of St. John.-By ALEXANDER SMYTH."

In conformity to the act of the congress of the United States, entitled "An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of MAPS, CHARTS, and BOOKS, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned," and also to the act, entitled "An act supplementary to an act, entitled An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of MAPS, CHARTS, and BOOKS, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned,' and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other PRINTS."

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, (L. S.) and affixed the public seal of iny office, the day and year aforesaid.

EDM. I. LEE,

Clerk of the District Court for the District of Columbia

THE important question respecting the book of The Revelation of St. John the divine, is, whether is it a prophetical vision of future events, or an artful enigmatical relation of past events, under the form of prophecy.

Let us first examine, by what early writers of the church this book has been quoted or referred to. The learned Lardner says, "It is very probable that

Hermas had read the book of St. John's Revelation, and imitated it; he has many things resembling it." This conclusion is drawn from the resemblance alone; from which I draw one entirely dif ferent. Hermas wrote after all the apostles were dead, and probably about the

year 100. Instead of the splendid city, the new Jerusalem, he has a great square tower, built with bright square stones, which are the saints. The work of Hermas is persuasive evidence that the Apocalypse was not written before his time; for although there is, in some particulars, a resemblance, yet the machinery of Hermas is so far inferior to that of the Apocalypse, that we must believe that the work of Hermas was first written; as in architecture the hut preceded the palace. A man of fertile imagination, with the visions of Hermas before him, might produce the Apocalypse; but it is not probable, that a writer with the Apocalypse before him, and imitating it, should produce such a work as the pastor of Hermas.

Doctor Lardner says, "I think it also highly probable that Papias had read