1917_The_Finished_Mystery_Text

away. In the bustle I closed my eyes for amoment. When I opened them the rubbish wasall gone, and the precious jewels, the diamonds,the gold and the silver coins lay scattered inprofusion all over the room. He then placed onthe table a casket, much larger and morebeautiful than the former, and gathered up thejewels, the diamonds, the coins, by the handful,and cast them into the casket, till not one wasleft, although some of the diamonds were notbigger than the point of a pin. He then calledupon me to come and see. I looked intoFM329the casket, but my eyes were dazzled with thesight. The contents shone with ten times theirformer glory. I thought that they had beenscoured in the sand by the feet of those wickedpersons who had scattered and trod them in thedust. They were arranged in beautiful order inthe casket— every one in its place— without anyvisible pains on the part of the man [PastorRussell] who cast them in. I shouted for joy; andthat shout awoke me."Revelation 21:21.And the twelve gates were [twelve] pearls;every several gate was of one pearl.— "Thepeculiar luster of a pearl is dependent on the factthat the surface is not perfectly smooth, butcovered with the irregularly sinuous edges ofinnumerable layers of inconceivable thinness,deposited one over the other. The distance ofthese edges from each other varies indefinitely,the pearls of the finest water having them closest.They are always, however, too fine to bedetected by the naked eye. The edges make somany steps, so to speak; and the iridescence isproduced by the mutual interference of the raysof light reflected from these thousands of angles.For their water, or lustre, as distinguished fromiridescence, pearls are indebted to their beingcomposed of thin layers, which allow light topass through them, while their numeroussurfaces disperse and reflect the light in such amanner that it returns and mingles with thatwhich is directly reflected from the exterior. The