Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/311

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displayed in worldly magnificence. All such interpretations of the prophecy are utterly unworthy of so profound a subject, and they are rather adapted to terrify the ignorant than to instruct the thoughtful.^[1] The very fact that "the sign of the Son of man" is to appear in heaven seems sufficient to show that He never designed that statement to be understood as a declaration that He would personally come again upon earth. The prediction that all the tribes of the earth are to see Him coming in the clouds of heaven cannot mean that all the people of the world are to behold Him descending in the clouds of the air. That would be impossible. The clouds, at their greatest elevation, are not far from the earth. When high and large, they can only be seen at a very inconsiderable distance, and

↑ A large part of the Christian world is of opinion that the second coming of the Lord is still to be looked for. It appears that in former times this belief was more vivid than it is now; before the year 1000, men were eagerly expecting it when that year should begin. In Michelet's "History of France," it is recorded how the whole Christian world looked with awe and terrible expectation to that time. The churches were everywhere crowded, and the business of life was almost at a standstill; while mankind waited, as the population of a city threatened by an earthquake wait, for the sounding of the archangel's trumpet; but that day of terrible anxiety passed away, and is now forgotten by all but the students of antiquity. Mosheim corroborates this view. He says, "All Europe was alarmed with the dismal apprehension that the day of judgment was at hand and the world approaching to its final dissolution; for, among other effects of this panic terror, the churches and monasteries were suffered to fall into ruin, or at least to remain without repair, from the notion that they would soon be involved in the general fate of all sublunary things."—Eccles. Hist., Cent, xi., chap, iv., sec, iii. Since that period, a year has scarcely passed without some persons announcing the end of the present dispensation; but belief in their prediction grows weaker and weaker, and now such announcements excite but little alarm. The time is passing away in which such misinterpretations of the prophecy can be accepted.

[1] A large part of the Christian world is of opinion that the second coming of the Lord is still to be looked for. It appears that in former times this belief was more vivid than it is now; before the year 1000, men were eagerly expecting it when that year should begin. In Michelet's "History of France," it is recorded how the whole Christian world looked with awe and terrible expectation to that time. The churches were everywhere crowded, and the business of life was almost at a standstill; while mankind waited, as the population of a city threatened by an earthquake wait, for the sounding of the archangel's trumpet; but that day of terrible anxiety passed away, and is now forgotten by all but the students of antiquity. Mosheim corroborates this view. He says, "All Europe was alarmed with the dismal apprehension that the day of judgment was at hand and the world approaching to its final dissolution; for, among other effects of this panic terror, the churches and monasteries were suffered to fall into ruin, or at least to remain without repair, from the notion that they would soon be involved in the general fate of all sublunary things."—Eccles. Hist., Cent, xi., chap, iv., sec, iii. Since that period, a year has scarcely passed without some persons announcing the end of the present dispensation; but belief in their prediction grows weaker and weaker, and now such announcements excite but little alarm. The time is passing away in which such misinterpretations of the prophecy can be accepted.

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