the end of the world has been a fertile and profitable theme with pulpit mountebanks and pious adventurers. ever since the primitive ages of christianity it has served to frighten the credulous and feather the nests of their deceivers.
in the apostolic days the second coming of christ was generally and constantly expected. according to the twenty-fourth of matthew, jesus predicted that the end of all things would soon arrive. the sun and moon were to be darkened; the stars were to fall from heaven; and the son of man was to come through the clouds with great power and glory, and gather the elect together from every quarter of the earth, according to the twenty-fifth of matthew, this wondrous scene was to be followed by a great assize. all the nations were to be judged before the heavenly throne, and divided into two lots, one destined for heaven and the other for hell. and jesus significantly added, "verily i say unto you, this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled."
st. paul also, in the fourth chapter of the first of thessalonians, said that the lord would "descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of god: and the dead in christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the lord in the air."
nothing of the sort has happened. there is no sign of the lord's coming, and he is already eighteen centuries behind date. "behold i come quickly"—"surely i come quickly." such was the announcement. but, like many other divine promises, it has been falsified. the only orthodox way out of the difficulty is to say that the lord does not reckon time as we do; with him a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day.
the general public, however, eighteen hundred years ago, did not know how long the prophecy was to remain unfulfilled, and it had an extraordinary power over them. being mostly very ignorant, and therefore very credulous, they were easily terrified by the notion that the world was to be burnt up speedily; and they as readily embraced the doctrine which promised to bring them safely through the catastrophe. from the way in which the game answers still with the christian mob, after nearly two thousand years of exposure, we can understand what a splendid instrument of proselytising it must have been in the hands of the fanatical preachers of the early church. combine with it the millennium promised to the saints after the second coming of christ, in which they were to enjoy themselves royally, and you will feel the justice of gibbon's remark that "it must have contributed in a very considerable degree to the progress of the christian faith." it was inculcated by a succession of fathers, from justin martyr to lactantius. but when it had served its purpose it was allowed to drop. as gibbon says, "it was at first treated as a profound allegory, was considered by degrees as a doubtful and useless opinion, and was at length rejected as the absurd invention of heresy and fanaticism." the millennium is stigmatised, in what once stood as the forty-first article of the english church, as "a fable of jewish dotage." we wonder whether the plain-spoken divines who drew up that article included jesus christ, st. paul, and st. john among the jewish dotards.
at the end of the tenth century the doctrine of the second coming was revived. the people were led to believe that the old serpent's thousand years of bondage was nearly up, that he would be let loose about the year 1,000, that antichrist would then appear, and that the end of the world would follow. churches and houses were therefore left to decay, as they would cease to be wanted. whenever an eclipse of the sun or moon took place, the people ran into caverns and caves. multitudes hurried off to palestine, where they supposed christ would make his descent. they transferred their property to the priests, who could say with iago, "thus do i ever make my fool my purse." others not only gave their property to the priests, but actually became their slaves; hoping, says mosheim, that "the supreme judge would be more favorable to them if they made themselves servants to his servants."
jortin justly observes that the priests industriously cherished the delusion for the sake of filthy lucre. they accepted the gifts of their poor dupes, although earthly possessions would be as useless to them as to the laity if the last days were at hand. donations to the church were given by fools and received by knaves. the reason assigned for the gift is generally thus expressed: appropinquante mundi termino—the end of the world being now at hand.*
when the tenth century ended without a sign of the second advent, people looked at each other and said "he is not come then." and the priests chuckled, "no, he has not come, but your property is gone." there was no chance of bringing an action for obtaining money under false pretences, and holy mother church never gives back a farthing of what she obtains, for what is once devoted to god can never be alienated without sacrilege.
although the delusion has been milder since then, it has always lurked among the ignorant, and occasionally become acute. silly christians still shake their heads when a comet is visible, and regard it as a blazing portent. they even hint that one of these wanderers through space may collide with our globe and cause the final smash; not knowing that comets are quite harmless, and that hundreds of cubic miles of their tails would not outweigh a jar-ful of air.
dr. cumming foretold the grand collapse several times. his books were read by thousands of superstitious people. finally, he was played out, and he went to his grave a discredited prophet. had he been wiser he would have fixed the event some time after he was likely to be buried. then the game would have lasted his lifetime, and what does it matter if you are found out when you are dead?
how far gumming believed his own prophecies is a moot point. it is said that he bought the lease of a house, which expired about twenty-five years after his date for the day of judgment.
prophet baxter, of the christian herald, now runs the business. he wrote a book to prove that louis napoleon was antichrist. louis napoleon is dead and nearly forgotten. then he proved that gambetta was antichrist. gambetta is dead and not forgotten. then he proved that prince jerome was antichrist. prince jerome is nowhere, and baxter is looking out for a fresh antichrist. yet his paper is read by hundreds of thousands. as heine said, the fool-crop is perennial.
over in america the second adventists are a numerous body. they watch and pray for the coming of christ, and keep white robes ready for their ascension. some time ago they donned their linen in the expectation that the lord was coming that very night. but the lord did not put in an appearance, and the robes were laid up in lavender again. a fat matron trying to fly in that outfit would be a sight worth seeing. it would take several angels to float some of them. even the archangel michael might shrink from tackling twenty-stone.
like everything else in christianity, except the accursed doctrine of salvation by faith, the idea of the end of the world and a day of judgment is derived from older sources.
the hindu kalpas, covering thousands of millions of years, are periods of creation and destruction, and each is called a day of brahma. during this enormous interval the universe begins and ends. brahma wakes from his slumbrous solitude, and his thoughts and emotions embody themselves in worlds and creatures. when he falls to rest again, the whole system of finite things vanishes like the baseless fabric of a vision.
the stoics also believed in a periodical destruction and renovation of all things. they, as alger says, "conceived of god as a pure artistic force or seed of universal energy, which exhibits its history in the evolution of the cosmos, and, on its completion, blossoms into fire and vanishes. the universal periodical conflagration destroys all evil, and leaves the indestructible god alone in his pure essence again."
the persians entertained a similar conception, which more closely resembles the christian doctrine. ahura-mazda creates all things good, and the race of men happy and immortal. but angra-mainyas, his adversary, the old serpent, corrupts them, brings upon them misery and death, and leads their souls to his dark abode. good and evil spirits fill all creation with their conflict. but at last ahura-mazda subdues angra-mainyas, nullifies all the mischief he has done by means of a great deliverer, who is sent to instruct and redeem mankind, raises the dead, purifies the world with fire, and restores all nature to its paradisiacal condition.
the scandinavians had their ragnarok, or twilight of the gods, when all the powers of good and evil join in battle. the horn sounds, the last day dawns in fire and splendor from the sky, in fog and venom from the abyss. flames destroy the earth, the combatants mostly slay each other, but gimli, the heaven of the all-father, is a refuge for the survivors, and the beginning of a new and fairer world.
chiefly influenced by the persian, and partly by other systems, the later jewish theology, as represented by the pharisees, taught that jehovah would reappear in the last days; and the day of the lord, which in former ages meant any national calamity, became transformed into the day of judgment. what was to happen on that occasion is described in the book of enoch. this was written about a century before christ, yet it is quoted in the epistle of jude as the work of old transported enoch, the seventh from adam; a fact which throws a singular light on the critical acumen of the early christians. jesus christ, paul, and especially the author of revelation, are indebted to the book of enoch. it provided them with nearly all the plot, dialogue and scenery of their judgment drama.
as judges of the dead, the greeks had minos, who presided at the trial of souls from europe; rhada-mauthus, who examined those from asia; and ?acus, who tried those from africa, america and australia were then unknown, and souls from those continents were not provided with inspectors. of course the dead who held communication with the living, never told them more than they knew. the same thing continues to this day. all the messages from the departed given at all the spiritist séances have not added a single fragment to the world's stock of information.
the ancient egyptians believed in "after death the judgment." souls were tried in the hall of the two-truths, or the double justice. they were weighed in the balance. thoth noted the result, and osiris pronounced sentence. before burial, also, the egyptian dead underwent a saner trial. the friends and relatives, the enemies and accusers of the deceased, assembled around the sarcophagus before forty-two assessors. he was put on his trial before them; and if justified, awarded an honorable burial; but, if condemned, disgraced by the withholding of funeral rites. kings, as well as commoners, were apparently subject to the same ordeal. does this account for the beneficent character of their government, and the prosperous-content of the people, which is reflected in the placid smile of their sphinxes?
probably the antique notion of a general day of judgment arose from the imposing trials, where the king sat in judgment, throned, jewelled, and guarded; where all were free to approach and claim justice; and where the sentences were executed by the soldiers-directly they were passed. add to this scene a general auto da fé, in which christ plays the part of grand inquisitor, the saints that of familiars, and the devil; that of executioner, and you have a very fair idea of the christian day of judgment.
"day," we presume, must not be taken too literally. the mohammedans believe the great assize will last thousands of years. in that case the people who are fond of hearing trials will have a fine time, until their own turn comes. after all, even the mohammedan computation seems too slender. to say nothing of the scientific antiquity of man, and reckoning according to the bible chronology, about two hundred thousand million souls have passed into eternity already, and the lord knows how many more will join them. imagination fails in conceiving the time it would take to try all that multitude, especially if there are a good number of tichborne cases. besides, the whole thing seems unfair. those who get a ticket for heaven at the end of the day will enjoy a few thousand years less of bliss than the more fortunate ones who came early; and those who get a ticket for hell in the first hour will suffer a few thousand years of torture more than those who are sentenced at the finish.
the criterion at the day of judgment will be faith. that is a difficult virtue to wise men, and an easy one to fools. the ninnies, therefore, will have the best chance. this must be very consoling to mankind if carlyle's estimate of england's population—"thirty millions, mostly fools"—may be extended to the rest of the world.
all who have faith enough to secure a seat in heaven are called "sheep," and they could not be labelled better. all the others are called "goats," that is, lusty, strong-legged fellows who despise the game of follow-my-leader, who object to walking along the road made for them, and are always leaping the fence to see what is on the other side. there was war in heaven once, we are told, but that was before satan and his crew were kicked out. there will never be war in heaven again. jesus christ will easily be able to manage his sheep. but the devil will have a tougher job with his goats. there will always be a kingdom in heaven, but ten to one there will be a republic in hell.
christianity says we are to be saved by faith. our view is different. men are saved by thinking and acting. while christian monks were trying to degrade men below the level of brutes, some unknown secularists invented windmills and glass windows. while the inquisition was exterminating heresy and purifying the faith, galileo was inventing the telescope. while church of englandism and methodism were fighting over the faith in england, watt was discovering the use of steam. faith never saved men here, and why should it save them hereafter? god, if he exist, must be too humane and sensible to judge men according to their belief; and if he endowed us with reason, he will never damn us for exercising it.
wandering in an immense forest during the night, said diderot, i have only one little light to guide me. a stranger comes to me and says, "my friend, blow out your candle to find your way better." that light is reason, and that stranger is a theologian.
science, no less than common sense, dispels christian superstition. evolution destroys the idea of a general catastrophe. there was a time when life could not exist on the earth, and there will probably come a time when it will cease to exist. long before then man will have disappeared. but the aeon of our race may extend to millions of years. is not this time practically infinite? and do not those who make it a cause for lamentation and despair resemble the man that spinoza ridicules, who refuses to eat his dinner to-day because he is not sure of a dinner for ever and ever? sit down, you fool, and eat.
