lled. The first is the one which finds favour among modern
critics, and which regards it as a forecast of the struggle then
impending between the Church under the headship of Christ and the civil
power under the emperor of Rome, though this view need not be accepted as
excluding the second theory, which regards it as a forecast of the
struggle of the Church with the world till the cup of the world's
iniquity is full and the day of its doom is come. The book appears to
have been written on the occurrence of some fierce persecution at the
hands of the civil power, and its object to confirm and strengthen the
Church in her faith and patience by a series of visions, culminating in
one of the Lamb seated on the throne of the universe as a pledge that all
His slain ones would one day share in His glory.

REVELS, MASTER OF THE, also called LORD OF MISRULE, in olden
times an official attached to royal and noble households to superintend
the amusements, especially at Christmas time; he was a permanent officer
at the English court from Henry VIII.'s reign till George III.'s, but
during the 18th century the office was a merely nominal one.

REVERBERATORY FURNACE, a furnace with a domed roof, from which the
flames of the fire are reflected upon the vessel placed within.

REVERE, PAUL, American patriot, born in Boston, U.S., bred a
goldsmith; conspicuous for his zeal against the mother-country, and one
of the first actors in the revolt (1735-1818).

REVEREND, a title of respect given to the clergy, Very Reverend to
deans, Right Reverend to bishops, and Most Reverend to archbishops.

REVILLE, ALBERT, a distinguished French Protestant theologian, born
at Dieppe; was from 1851 to 1872 pastor at Rotterdam, in 1880 became
professor of the History of Religions in the College of France, and six
years later was made President of the Section des Etudes Religieuses at
the Sorbonne, Paris; has been a prolific writer on such subjects as "The
Native Religions of Mexico and Peru" (Hibbert Lectures for 1884),
"Religions of Non-civilised Peoples," "The Chinese Religion," &c.; _b_.
1826.

REVIVAL OF LETTERS, revival in Europe in the 15th century of the
study of classical, especially Greek, literature, chiefly by the arrival
in Italy of certain learned Greeks, fugitives from Constantinople on its
capture by the Turks in 1453, and promoted, by the invention of printing,
to the gradual extinction of the dry, barren scholasticism previo