Mr. Philip Mauro has written a large book of 576 pages bearing the above title, expounding the Book of Revelation, which we are asked briefly to review. To attempt even a brief review would necessitate a large volume, so we will content ourselves with a few remarks.
There are two great schools of thought in connection with "The Revelation." There is the Historicist School, which teaches that that which is described from Chapter 6 to the end of Chapter 19, that is, from the opening of the seals till the setting up of the Millennium, is all to be fulfilled in this present dispensation or era, and that most of it has been already fulfilled.
Mr.Mauro sees very serious defects in this system, and in its place presents his view, which is largely a Historicist system of his own.
Then there is the Futurist School, which teaches that all in Revelation from Chapter 5 is future, and will not begin to be fulfilled till after the rapture of the Church. Mr. Mauro says: "One strong objection I now see to the Futurist viewpoint is that it tends to quench one's interest in this wonderful Book, by pushing the things it predicts far away from us, making its transcendently important revelations to be for those of a coming dispensation, the so-called 'tribulation saints,' and thus virtually detaching it from the rest of the Bible" (The Patmos Visions, pp. 8, 9).
The writer cannot say that this is the case with him. Indeed, the Futurist view claims the deepest interest on the part of many enlightened students of prophecy. On the contrary, one would lose a good deal of interest in the Book of Revelation, if the Historicist viewpoint were accepted, whether it runs on the lines of the well-known School that adopts this system, or the particular views of Mr. Mauro on this line.