(1919) between two worlds: the new day and old questions (death)

8/9/2019 (1919) Between Two Worlds: The New Day and Old Questions (Death)

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NYPL RESEARCH LIBRARIES

3 3433 06825270 3

WOWORLDSJOHN HESTONWILtEY


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Association PressPublishersyCS'HSlWY>ooksdlcrs

PURPOSE

The PuBucATioH Departmentcflke Irdemshonsl Committee cfyounfMen:r

Oirjj-tiRn Mrodatiotu-347 MADISON AVENUE. NEW YORK

THIS BOOK is furnishedby the publishers for

editorial and review purposes.The courtesy of a copy ofany personal or publishedcomment concerning it willbe very much appreciated.The price of this book is^ i'^^ per copy.


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BETWEEN TWO WORLDS


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OTHER BOOKSBY THE SAME AUTHORBack to BethlehemModern Problems and theOld Faith

John Chrysostom, OratorMidsummer Nights with the Great DreamerJoshua, the Warrior PrinceThe World War and TomorrowGod's Purpose through the Ages


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BETWEEN TWO WORLDSThe New Day and the Old Questions

JOHN HESTON WILLEY

ASSOCIATION PRESSNbw York. : 347 Madison Avenue

1919


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1...- i\i.v/ VuF;K-^^^--: inRARYTli-DEN FOUNDATIONS:^ 1919 L

COPTBIQHT. 1919, BTJohn Heston Willet


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ToThe Men Who Were Not Afbah)


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CONTENTSCHAPTER PAGE

Introduction 1I. This World and the Other 13

II. The End of the World 41III. The Second Coming of Christ 61rV. After DeathWhat? 93

I. Is Man Immortal? 95II. Is Sin Eternal? 115

V. The Great Adventure 125I. Is There Anything in Death to Fear?. 127

II. After DeathThen? 139III. Is Heaven Intelligible? 147


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INTRODUCTION


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INTRODUCTIONBlow the horn upon Zion;Sound the alarm on my Holy Mountain!All the Inhabitants of the land shall tremble,For the Day of Jehovah comethFor it is near !^

A Day of Darkness and Gloom,A Day of Clouds and Deep Darkness.As the Dawn spread upon the Mountains,A People great and strong.There hath not ever been the like,Nor shall be again after itFor years of Generations upon Generations.^Before Them the Fire devoursAnd behind Them burns a Flame.Like the Garden of Eden is the Land before Them,But a desolate Desert behind Them,And nothing escapes Them.^Alas for the Day!For at hand is the Day of JehovahAnd as an over-powering from the Over-powererShall it come.*And I will show portents in Heaven and on Earth,Blood and Fire and columns of Smoke.The Sun shall be turned into DarknessAnd the Moon to Blood!

Joel 2:1. Joel 2: 3."Joel 2: 2. * Joel 1.16.


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Between Two WorldsBefore the Day of Jehovah comes, the Great and

the Terrible.^For they are spirits of demons, working signs;which go forth unto the kings of the whole world,

to gather them together unto the war of the greatday of God, the Almighty. . . . And they gatheredthem together into the place which is called inHebrew Har-Magedon.^For nation shall rise against nation, and king-dom against kingdom, and there shall be faminesand earthquakes in divers places. But all these

things are the beginning of travail.'^But immediately after the tribulation of thosedays the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall

not give her light, and the stars shall fall fromheaven, and the powers of the heavens shall beshaken : and then shall appear the sign of the Sonof man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes ofthe earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of mancoming on the clouds of heaven with power andgreat glory.^Never in the history of the race have these

ominous prophecies seemed nearer their fulfil-ment. Never has there been such anxiety in thehearts of men. We live in the midst of graveand swift happenings. The Great War hascome and gone. Nations are seething with un-rest. New social postulates and new industrialJoel 2: 30, 31. Matthew 24: 7, 8.Revelation 16: 14, 16. "Matthew 24: 29, 30.


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Introductionprograms are clamoring for a hearing. Bolshe-vism in politics, Bolshevism in industry, Bol-shevism in religionthese are the grim lionsthat stand adown the path, and we are yet tolearn if they be chained or not. Mighty eventsare being staged in a mighty arena, and manyare asking if this be the fifth act, and if nowthe drama will close and the curtain will fall.

It is a very serious world. Mr. P. WhitwellWilson of the London Daily News has writtena new life of Christnew in every sense, per-haps because it is from the virgin viewpoint ofa layman. In this unforgettable book, which hecalls * * The Christ We Forget, * ' we read this

** Before the War it seemed almost unneces-sary to find time for the Bible. Many of uswere making money ; others were busily earningit. . . . We drifted in tens, hundreds of thou-sands from public worship. We ceased to pray.We quietly laid aside the Bible.Thensuddenlywe were brought face toface with facts that we had forgotten. One ofthese facts was Deathanother was Painanother was Hatredanother was NationalDutyanother was Suspense. We learned thatlife is not a game, but a grim, heroic combatbetween good and evil. For this crisis we foundourselves unprepared. Men and women fled forrefuge in some cases to spiritualism, crystal-gazing, and fortune telling. . . . Lives that had


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Between Two Worldsbeen frivolous were consecrated to war work,and there is a growing splendor of nationalunity and of personal sacrifice/*The newspapers are feeling the solemn beat

of the world pulse. The schools catch the samenote of anxiety. Professor Ernst Haeckel inone of his latest books, ^^ Eternity, or World-War Thoughts on Life and Death, * * writes**We have been passing through a tragedy ofunexampled magnitude and horror. Millions ofhuman beings have already fallen victims to the

terrible international slaughter. . . . People onall sides begin to inquire, 'What is the meaningof Lifer 'Is Existence eternal r 'When thebody dies does the soul die tooT *'He says he has received many letters asking

for light from students at the front or lying inhospitals. The only advice this celebrated scien-tist and teacher can offer is that, as students ofbiology, these young men shall regard deathwith rational resignation. It is a natural neces-sity and must come sooner or later under anycircumstance. "Try to make your life as goodand happy as possible,** he writes, "and leavethe decision of your fate to that blind chancewhich rules the universe.**But this does not answer the needs of the


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Introductionhour. We are not all students of biology; wecannot all and always be philosophers. Thewives and mothers whose husbands and sonshave not yet returned from across the sea, thebroken families whose husbands and sons willnever returnthese must have something betterthan the deductions of science or the decrees ofblind chance.And the young men themselves are lookinginto the dark and asking for clear signals. Thetrumpet that calls to the charge must give nouncertain sound ; neither must the trumpet thatcalls to the faith.Said a young lieutenant to a secretary of theYoung Men's Christian Association during the

late war, **We are finding over here that justa few things countthe Bible, God, Christ, theSoul, and Eternity. * ' Just before the stormingof Chateau-Thierry the boys in khaki, who a fewmonths before would have smiled tolerantly atany suggestion of psalm singing or intercession,were saying among themselves, ** They 're pray-ing for us at home just now, fellows. That's ajolly good thing."

Chaplain Watt of the Gordon Highlandersgives us a glimpse of * ^ The Heart of a Soldier. 'More than a glimpse indeedit is a picture, adiary, an excursion into the soul of the men


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8 Between Two Worldswhose natural aptitudes are for the pen and theplow and the plumb-bob, but who were calledfrom their peaceful craft to ^'the bloody trialof sharp war/^ He writes:

^^This is a war of vision. . . . Out in the landof war, dogma has become like the kit which asoldier flings away as he enters the stern con-flict where death jostles life in closest contestfor victory. ... If you speak to men out thereyou know you are speaking to the souls thatere a few hours pass will have taken the finalstep across the Great Divide; and even if theyweather the cataclysmic blast that will soon beatupon them they will come back as those whohave looked into the well at the world's end andlearned something of the mystery of the Be-yond. . . . What do you speak of in such anhour of stress ? The love of God in Jesus Christ,the splendor of sacrifice for others, the death-lessness of that spirit which animates the clay,and that hope of meeting after the parting herewhich lights the face of the dying as with a sun-burst from the Land of Dawn.'*Even before the War there was a certain

quickening of the sense of the supernatural, anew emphasis of the unseen and the mystical,as if the world were getting itself ready for itsGethsemane. In Harvard a course of lectureson immortality is being delivered each year,through the generosity of Mr. George G. Inger-


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Introductionsoil, who left a fund for that purpose. A similarcourse is being given in the Leland StanfordJr. University of California. These lecturesare published; so from the two edges of thecontinent the best thought of the best thinkerson eternity and on the soul is being poured likea saving reagent into the seething crucible ofthe national life.Men of high degree and of keen intellect, likeSir Oliver Lodge of the University of Birming-ham, Alfred Russel Wallace the naturalist. SirOliver Crookes the chemist. Sir Conan Doyle thenovelist, have thought it worth while to studymatters of the hereafter.All these are but signs of the times. We haveno further use for materialism as a philosophyand we are beginning to resent materialism asa Zeitgeist. We are learning that all our powersare not represented by machinery, and that allour hungerings are not to be satisfied withbread. The deeps within are calling to thedeeps without. The things invisible are begin-ning to assert their primacy over the thingsvisible.Even the swing toward sociology will not bepermanent. The New Jerusalem that came

down from heaven and established itself on theearth has captured the Church, and our duty


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lO Between Two Worldsto the world and to the world of men is takingthe place of other-worldliness. This is good,but it will not meet all the conditions and it willnot last. Narrowed down and localized, it madeGerman Kultur and the German war machine;broadened out and unchallenged it will make aworld satisfied with itself and oblivious of orantagonistic to any sort of other-world. Wemust remember and keep on remembering, inthe midst of our university settlements and allour civic programs, that in this New Jerusalemdown here on the earth we have no abiding habi-tation.An English essayist writes : ''The old impulseto wonder, which came to the race in its infancy,has to come back and triumph before the morn-ing of the final emancipation of man can dawn. ^ ^The race has become too sophisticated. It iscareful and troubled about many thingseventhings of its own social uplift and resanitation.It must become again as a little child, and learnagain to wonder, and to hope, and to worship.

This little book is sent out in response to theseconditions, and in humble hope that it may servesome good purpose. The subjects discussed aresuch as wise men approach with caution. Goddid not intend us to know all the facts in thecase, or he would have given them to us; or


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Introduction 1perhaps he has given them, but we do not under-stand, ^ ^ because they are spiritually discerned. *The opinions hereinafter set forth may notagree with the opinions of the reader. Then

let us be patient and tolerant with each other.The writer is still a learner, and one of the firstthings learned is that a man may not agreewith him, and yet may know as much about asubject as he does. One of the latest thingslearned is the very small area of any greatsubject about which any of us can be positivehence the constant need for the deepest humility.

All the findings here are based upon Scrip-ture, as the writer understands Scripture, andif this writing shall answer any serious ques-tion, or suggest the solution of any hard prob-lem, or help to steady any distressed soul in thewhirlwind and chaos of the present crisis, it willhave justified its preparation and its author willbe satisfied.And he concludes this rambling prelude in thesimple words with which Christina G. Rossetticloses her studies of the Book of the Revelation,which studies she calls ' ' The Face of the Deep' ^*^If I have been overbold in attempting such awork as this, I beg pardon.''


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THIS WORLD AND THE OTHER


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CHAPTER ITHIS WORLD AND THE OTHER

Of what use is the next world to us while weare in this world! Have we standing room foreternity in the swift busy days through whichwe are passingany need of its promise and itshope! The vision of a hereafter is good to diewith. We face the grave with bolder, steadiernerve when we assume that the grave opens intothe light on the further side. We fold the stillhands of our home idols on their breasts andleave them in the cemetery, and our hearts arebrave when we believe that they shall be oursagain in the glad eternal days.

It is good to die with this ^^hope beyond theshadow of a dream, ^ ' but what good is it to livewith! Does the prospect of heaven make earthany better ! Is this belief in immortality in anyway a part of the gospel of morality and largerliving! Shelley assures us that

**Life, like a dome of many-colored glass,Stains the white radiance of Eternity. '

What we are interested in just now is the staincast upon life by eternity: the effect upon our

IS


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1 Between Two Worldsthinking and our doing of the belief that ourdoing and our thinking will know no pause inthe grave.A Purpose in LifeWe are at last convinced that there is a pur-

pose in life, that this increasing purpose runsthrough the ages in an ever-widening path. Wehave definitely given up the idea of chance inthe creation of the world. The world changeshave been followed backward by tireless, inex-orable pathfinders, and there has been found abeginning. In all the latest textbooks of theschoolshistory, geolog}% astronomy, anthro-pologythe best science has left a blank spaceon the first page, and Faith has written in thisspace the opening words of the Bible, **In thebeginningGod. 'God at HandWe are also repudiating the idea of chancein the world management. We believe 'in God,but he is not an absentee God. The great Land-lord lives on the premises. He does not needdaily reports from the field. He is in the field.He does not drop in occasionally and perform amiracle to show that he is still to be reckonedwith; he is performing miracles every moment.


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This World and the Other ijThe simplest processes of nature are miracles.If there were but one pond-lily in the world, wewould build a cathedral and a shrine about itand make pilgrimages to see it. But thousandsof lilies crowning the fen and gladdening ourJune are no less wonderful than one. If mannahad continued to fall until today, it would at-tract no more attention than the wheatfields orthe springtime. If there had been but one sun-rise and it had been recorded in the Bible, wewould have had our critics gravely discussingthe pictorial phraseology of the Oriental wit-nesses, or the effect of cerebral lesion, as ex-planation of the mental attitude of these gulliblewitnesses.Man created in the Garden of Edenverywell, then there is a God and a purpose in life.Man the result of measureless processes, strug-gling upward from cave lodgings and skin gar-ments to large and abundant lifehere, too,there is purpose.God in ScienceWe hear the wise men talk of the Nebular

Hypothesis, and the Survival of the Fittest, andthe Cosmic Processand how these terms usedto frighten us! How they would shake theirgory locks at us, and in a panic we used to


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1 Between Two Worldscharge them with all manner of devilish designsagainst the faith. But now comes John Fisketo say that ' ' the ultimate goal of cosmic processis the perfection of human character.'* Why,that is not so bad. This Cosmic Process mustbe a blood relation of the Christian religion, forthat is what Christianity is set to do. It mustbe in the pay of the great King, for that is hisworld program. Mr. Huxley, watching throughthe microscope the tiny speck of living matterand noticing its transformation, says, "One isalmost possessed of the notion that with bettervision one might see the hidden artist with hisplan before him, striving with skilful manipula-tion to perfect his work. ' ' Ah, but we have thebetter vision; we have spoken the hidden artistand we know his name. We see his plan out-lined large and luminous. Here it is in Paul'sletter to the Romans; '*Whom he did foreknow,he also did predestinate to be conformed to theimage of his Son." Here it is in the glowingepistle to the Ephesians : ' ' the perfecting of thesaints . . . unto the building up of the body ofChrist : till we all attain unto a fullgrown man,unto the measure of the stature of the fulnessof Christ. " Oh, the divine artist, keen visioned,deft handed, but tender, so tender, and as gentleas the mother whose baby cuddles against her


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This World and the Other 19neckstanding *^ within the shadow, keepingwatch above his own."God in HistoryThere is a purpose in human happenings.

God was no more certainly at Jerusalem or onthe plains of Esdraelon than he is in London orNew York. The Acts of the Apostles is a con-tinued story and a new chapter is added atevery political convention or missionary meet-ing. We wonder sometimes if there be any endor aim. Things seem to happen. Look on thescreen as the world pictures unfold : China, un-canny old hermit, brooding through the cen-turies over her ancestral tablets ; Egypt, crouch-ing sphinx-like along the banks of her ancientriver, and, like the sphinx, watching ever towardthe sunrise ; Babylon on her sand heaps ; Greecewith her despoiled temples; Rome, the Goths,the Huns, the Franks, the Anglo-Saxonswhata labyrinth it is where evil triumphs andtyranny is crowned ! But there has been a pur-pose in it all. It is, according to Hegel, ''theunfolding of spiritual being in time." TheGoths do not overthrow Rome until Rome hasthe Cross which may be taken back into thenorthern forests. Constantinople does not openthe gateway into Europe for the Mohammedans


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20 Between Two Worldsuntil St. Paul 's is builded in London ; Columbusdoes not sail until Luther is nine years old. TheAtlantic cable, broken, is not mended until theCivil War is over, and so Europe cannot makecapital of our family quarrels. A purpose init all and some one in charge who '^will not failnor be discouraged, till he have set justice inthe earth; and the isles shall wait for his law.^'What a scheme it is ! Out of the mists of pre-historic time the head of the procession moves.Look at the figures in the lead : clothed in skins,fierce of visage, loutish, unwashed they come,and we can but dimly see them through the mistsof the years. Then history, and names thatmean but little: Nimrod, Sargon, Hammurabi,names that are mildewed and mouldy with thedamp of ages. Then more clearly is outlinedthe procession: Assyria, Persia, Egj^pt, Israelcome into the range of vision, and the Son ofGod takes his place in the line of march and theChurch of God goes forth to the lionsand sowe swing into the stride of modern life.God and the World WarWe may even dare to look for a purpose in

the tragedy of Europe, the travail of the worldwhich we have but lately passed through. Neverhas there been such an opportunity for men and


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This World and the Other 21women to make life rich and full. Never thechance to die for such a cause; and that, afterall, is the largest lifeto suffer, to die if neces-sary, for the largest cause that comes our way.Young men went into camp and into the trenchesand they died, but their death is in the book.There will be nothing thrown as useless rubbishto the void. They will have made more of them-selves and have won more from life than if theyhad lived a thousand years of ordinary daysengaged in ordinary pursuits.

Death an Eternal SleepWhat would be the character of life if there

were no purpose in life, no tomorrow on theprogram? Paul glimpses its condition. *'If thedead rise not,'' he writes, **let us eat and drink,for tomorrow we die.'* If we have only today,let us squeeze it dry. We have no duty to theworld, it is but a passing show ; no duty to eachother, for humanity is but a herd of animalsdriven to the abattoir; no duty to ourselves,except to eat the fat and drink the sweet andso go to our long home sated with the goodthings of life. Omar Elhayyam speaks out con-sistently on this point. He is not able to findany world but this, and not able to find any


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22 Between Two Worldspurpose in this world, so he sets about makingthe most of what we have*' Drink I for you know not whence you came,

nor why;Drink! for you know not why you go, nor

where. * *

A highly civilized people once made the ex-periment. By official order, over every ceme-tery gate was written, ''Here Is Eternal Sleep,"and the French world set out to live without anytomorrow. Thomas Carlyle makes a record ofthis fact and calls the chapter in which thisrecord is made ''Rushing Down." The nextchapter he calls "Death," and the next he calls"Destruction." It was the death knell of orderand law and safety. The Sabbath was abolishedthe churches became stables and taverns; thechurch services became drinking bouts; homeswere discredited and human lives became of nomore value than the lives of beasts. This wasthe effect of leaving Eternity out of Time; ofcutting earth off from heaven.What a narrow life it would be ! How mean-ingless would seem the heroism and the heroesof the paststage play that faded into darknesswhen the curtain fell. The mothers who havegiven their life for the little life in the cradle.


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This World and the Other 23the patriots in the trenches, the martyrs whohave fronted lions in the arenahow hollow anddramatic it all appears, unless there is eternalreason for it! What is the good I We die nextweek. Why sacrifice and suffer soul penanceto grow a soul! It will be cut off as the treefalls and where it falls it will lie forever more.Tell the world there is nothing elseand youcut the nerve of morality, make character afarce, and turn loose upon society the wildbeasts that lurk in every human breast.MaterialismSo in his poem * ^ Lucretius ' ' Tennyson seeks

to meet the materialistic teachings that werecoming into favor in England and to confrontthe new Lucretius, Professor Tyndall, whosecreed was, *^ given atoms and motion, the uni-verse is the result.'^

Consistently the old Roman poet-philosophersays:* ' Poor little life that toddles half an hourCrowned with a flower or two, and there an

endAnd since the nobler pleasure seems to fade.Why should I, beastlike as I find myself.Not manlike end myself? . . .Thusthus: the soul flies out and dies in the


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24 Between Two WorldsHere he drives the knife into his side, and whenhis wife rushes in and cries out upon herselfas having failed in duty to him, he answers,

^^Care not thou!Thy duty? What is duty I Fare thee well!*'Tennyson also gives a hint of the effect of

such a creed upon the common people who arenot poets or philosophers. A man and his wife,losing faith in God and in the future, agree todrown themselves. The wife succeeds and dies.The husband is rescued against his will andbitterly he laments the rescue. And of the nightin which the attempt is made he says^'The suns of the limitless Universe sparkledand shone in the sky.Flashing with fires as of God, but we knew that

their light was a lieBright as with deathless hope but however

they sparkled and shone,The dark little worlds running round themwere worlds of woe like our own. '

But now let it be conceded that an eternity isto follow time and at once we feel that life isworth while. What we do now will have aneternal sequence and meaning. Our good deeds,our high and holy habits, our aspirations afterthe idealall this is but part of the training.


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This World and the Other 25We are faithful in a few things that are seen,by and by we shall be made lord of many thingsthat are unseen. Doing well today, we are fittedfor doing better and even better in the long andwaiting tomorrow.Eternity Here

There is more than that. Our fathers so oftenmade the mistake of trying in this world todevelop a character that would be suited to thenext world. There was a constant clash andoutcry against the flesh limitations and the lawof the lower self, a constant appeal to heavenlystandards. This was the sum and substance oftheir teaching and their ambition

*' In hope of that immortal crown

I now the cross sustain.And gladly wander up and down,And smile at toil and pain.I suffer out my three-score yearsTill my Deliverer comeAnd wipe away His servant ^s tearsAnd take this exile home. '

But we are not exiles. *^We are marchingthrough Immanuel's ground to fairer worldson high.'' Eternity is not a sequel to time, itis a continuation of time. In our earth life weare to develop a character suited to this life.


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26 Between Two WorldsIf that character can be made at home here

it will be at home hereafter. If it can be sodisciplined and refined that it can live largelyand mightily in New York, it will live largelyand mightily in heaven.We do not need to be strangers and sojournersdo not need to take the road in a Pilgrim'sProgress away from the world ; do not need toseek the caves of the mountains or the dimwhitewashed cells of the cloister. In our busi-ness we may be learning how to live in the NewJerusalem. In our housekeeping affairs wemay be practicing the housekeeping virtues thatwill ornament and adorn the house not madewith hands, eternal in the heavens. Our slight-est actions take on a vast and beautiful signifi-cance. You sit down to give some child a happyhourwhy, you are brightening up eternity!You send your clerk or your housemaid for anafternoon in the country, and you are settinginto operation a wave of good and of unselfish-ness that is part of the eternal sea, and that willbreak in ripples on unseen and remote shoresbeyond the thought of man.Lifers Realization Now

This world becomes more than a preparation.It is an initiation, a foretaste. We get the most


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This World and the Other 27out of our present existence by regarding it asbut a segment of the complete circle of existence.As Emerson writes, *'Eacli day may be the bestday of the year. ' ^ As the German poet declares,*' Every inferior is a higher in the making, everyhateful a coming beautiful, every evil a cominggood.''

We do not need to postpone our good untilwe get to heaven. The treasure to be laid upthere may be appreciated to the full, enjoyed tothe limit here. Not so does the world use itschildren. The business man who toils day andnight to acquire a competency hopes that by andby when he possesses that competency he mayrest and have life. The scholar who burns themidnight oil and denies himself all recreationand all respite, looks to the day when the worldwill admire. But the man doing business withGod gets the joy of life with each day of life.The student of the mysteries of the Christianfaith revels in each new discovery, is glad witheach new day, is filled every moment with theriches both of the wisdom and the knowledgeof God.There is no risk here, no hope deferred tomake the heart sick. Almost any man, if per-

sistent enough and sleepless enough and selfishenough, may get after a while what as a child


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28 Between Two Worldshe wanted most, but he must take with him theheart of a child to enjoy it. His highest am-bitions, his dearest ideals in life may eventuallybe realizedbut his outworn nature may notrespond to them ; and his apple, so fair without,may be ashes within. So often we break ouridols by going to see them ; so often we lose ourjoys by possessing them. **Galba,'' says Taci-tus, *^would have been an ideal Emperor if hehad never been Emperor.** A certain admiral,the idol of the American people, might havebecome President if he had remained in thePhilippines until election day. You rememberthe cynical little poem of the woman who losther lover. He did not die, he did not travelinto foreign lands, he did not forsake her forfairer charms. She lost him by marrying him.Perhaps she made discoveries, perhaps he madediscoveries, perhaps there were mutual dis-coveries in the fierce light that breaks aboutthe breakfast table. The fair nymph Daphnewhom Apollo pursued became a laurel tree inhis arms. The squirrel in the fable served thelion long and well for the promise of a barrelof nutstoo long indeed, for when the wagerwas won the squirrel had lost his teeth and thenuts were impossible.But there is no danger of powers wasted in


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This World and the Other 29the pursuit of heavenly things, and of powersbroken before these things are possessed. Theknowledge that today is part of eternity givesus freedom to wear our crown of glory and singour songs of redemption today. The fruits ofthis tree of life come every month. Here theplowman overtakes the reaper, and the treaderof grapes him that soweth the seed.

**I stand in the great forever,All things to me are divine

I eat of the heavenly manna,I drink of the heavenly wine. '

Life's IdealismWith this outlook there is nothing common-

place in life. How it irks us, this commonplace,this beaten track, this doing over and over theusual, the expected. We do not dare ventureinto new paths, or launch upon new seas, orattempt new enterprises. The world is readyto call us revolutionists if we are unconven-tional, and if we depart too far from the con-ventions they put a strait-jacket on us.And what a prospect it is for the imagination ITo get up at the same hour every morning; to

take the same 3ar to the city or to the office ; tomeet the same frowzy, half-awake people; to


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30 Between Two Worldssit at the same oflSce desk; or to move aroundin the same little domestic circle; attend thesame entertainments; utter the same banalitiesabout the weather, the taxes, or the trade, fortwenty years, for thirty years, for a lifetime.What a dreary waste, a desert of sand to thesensitive soul: for life is a dead level, kept soby the policeman and by Madame Grundy.*^ Forenoon and Afternoon and NightFore-noonAnd Afternoon and NightForenoon andwhat?The empty song repeats itself. No more I ' *

Dr. Chalmers has said that there are threegrand essentials to happiness: '^something todo, something to love, and something to hopefor. ' ' Here is the hopethe anchor which, withcareful definiteness, the writer of Hebrews sayslies within the veil, and from which proceedsthe golden chain that binds our souls to God.With this hope there need be nothing common-

place in life. There can be nothing common-place when you can

* * See a world in a grain of sandAnd a heaven in a wild flower.Hold infinity in the palm of your handAnd eternity in an hour. '


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This World and the Other 31Maeterlinck illustrates how the soul may be

superior to environment in the ease of CharlotteBronte. **Here,'' he writes, *4s the daughterof a country clergyman without social contactor travel to broaden her views of life ; with nei-ther husband nor lover to feed her imaginationor provide her with ideals. A nervous, shrink-ing, awkward, homely spinster of thirty, livinga pinched and meager life with a dissolutebrother and an unapproachable father in a littlegrim stone parsonage on the bleak moorlandsof Yorkshire. ' ' Now read her great book * * JaneEyre. * ' The large and wonderful world is therebecause the young woman was by regal righta citizen of that worldthe large world of lightand love and splendid heroism. She carried thisworld in her heart and she lived every day amidits vivid hazards and happenings.** *A commonplace life,' we say, and we sigh;But why should we sigh as we say?The commonplace sun in the commonplace skyMakes up the commonplace day.The moon and the stars are commonplace

things.And the flower that blooms and the bird thatsings.But dark were the world and sad were ourlot

If the flowers had failed and the sun shone not


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32 Between Two WorldsAnd God, who studies each commonplace soul,Out of commonplace things makes his beautiful

whole. ^'

Commonplacewhy, the great literary seersays that '^All the world ^s a stage and all themen and women merely players.'^ But he wasnot original. He was at his borrowing again.Many centuries before another seer had thesame idea in mind when he wrote, *^We also arecompassed about with so great a cloud of wit-nesses, let us lay aside every weight,'* and letus run with glad and cheerful endurance therace that is set before us.^ * ^ Glad and cheerfulendurance''^I was rejoiced to find all that inthe old Greek word which we so calmly andstolidly read ** patience."Lifers ArenaAnd the spectators of this mighty life-Mara-

thon, in which we try our paces, are not ourcontemporaries for whose benefit we usuallypose and strut; the spectators are the cham-pions of the faith of whom the world was notworthy. Can life be commonplace with sucha gallery as this? Napoleon in Egypt said tohis men, according to the general consent ofHeb. 12: 1.


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34 Between Two Worldsis invisible.'' For they were seeking a country,**a better country, that is, a heavenly.'' And**they were tortured, not accepting deliverance;that they might obtain a better resurrection."It is all there in the eleventh chapter of He-brews, the Westminster Abbey of the NewTestament, the burial-place of the kings of old,who made a good confession and being dead yetspeak.Lifers CompensationSo argues Paul : * ' If in this life only we have

hope in Christ, we are of all men most miser-able." What does he mean? Read the fourthchapter of the same book in which he makesthis plaintive cry: ^^Unto this present hour weboth hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and arebuffeted, and have no certain dwellingplace . . .we are made as the filth of the world, theoffscouring of all things." If there is onlythis life, what is the use, Paul? Why not giveup the struggle? Why not surrender to theinevitable? Life is not worth the price. Butthe light of the hereafter breaks upon his soul,and he is on his feet again, and his banner isin the breeze, and his trumpet is at his lips fora new charge as he writes: *^I am persuadedthat neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor


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This World and the Other 35principalities, nor things present, nor thingsto come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, norany other creature, shall be able to separate usfrom the love of God which is in Christ Jesusour Lord.'*

It was an evolutionist, but an evolutionistwith his hand on the Bible and his eye on theCross and his heart warm with the hope ofimmortality, who said**I have climbed to the snows of Age, and I gaze

at a field in the Past,Where I sank with the body at times in thesloughs of a low desire.

But I hear no yelp of the beast, and the Manis quiet at last.As he stands on the heights of his life witha glimpse of a height that is higher. *Alfred Tennyson.

G. Lowes Dickinson, in his Ingersoll lecture,**Is Immortality Desirable T* is ready to say:**The conception that death ends all may notempty life of its worth, but it destroys its mostprecious element, that which transfigures all therest; it obliterates the gleam on the snow, theplanet in the east ; it shuts off the great adven-ture, the adventure beyond death.'' Even thecold practical Doctor Osier, late of Johns Hop-kins, concedes that a belief in the resurrection


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36 Between Two Worldsof the dead is the rock of safety to which manyof the noblest even of the scientists have clung.He **will acknowledge with gratitude and rever-ence the service to humanity of the great soulswho have departed this life in a sure and cer-tain hope"; and further he admits that *'theemotional side to which faith leans makes forall that is bright and joyous in life."Life's Reality

In fact, the relation between this world andthe other world is the relation between thevisible and the invisible, the shadow and thesubstance, the human and the divine. It haslong been a creed of poets and philosophers thatwhat we see is but a symbol or outward expres-sion of what we cannot see, that matter is butthe garment of spirit. Emerson says that * ' na-ture is the incarnation of a thought, ' ' and again,

* * Spirit that lurks each form within,Beckons to spirit of its kin. '

The editor of The Outlook writes that ''Beautyis the medicine of God for aching hearts. It isthe multitude of fiery chariots."

This seems to be the meaning of RudolfEucken, whose philosophy made a large impres-


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This World and the Other 37sion upon the thinking world a few years since,but whose theories were so fiercely challengedby the great war thrust upon the world by hisown countrjonen. He declares that the thoughtworld and the sense world are ** related to oneanother as reality and appearance, as cause andeffect. The divine is not something specific out-side of things, but their connection in a livingunity. . . . History is only valuable as beingthe medium through which the Eternal revealsitself."Joseph Cook the picturesque does not content

himself with glittering generalities. His speechalways glitters, but it is not commonplace. Hehas borrowed the curt periods of Carlyle tobetter purpose than that; and so, when he de-sires to write this great truth upon the mind, hemakes a few quick strokes with his burin, andthis is the etching: **As the green billows thatdash at this moment on Boston Harbor bar andcap themselves with foam are one with theAtlantic, so you and I and Shakespeare andCharlemagne and Caesar and the Seven Starsand Orion are but so many waves in the DivineAll. * ' And the bookish audience of Boston pro-fessors and philosophers and scientists ap-plauded his rhetoric, because a great truth wasexpressed in these flashing sentences, and be-


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38 Between Two Worldscausewell, they had gotten accustomed toJoseph Cook.And so the world takes on a new radiance anda new glory when we are able to find God in theworld. And we are forfeit if we do not find himthere.

**God is not dumb that he shall speak no more.If thou hast wanderings in the wildernessAnd findest not Sinai ^tis thy soul is poor.''So Lowell. And Mrs. Browning, in the veryopening of her ^* Aurora Leigh,'' writes thefamiliar lines so swift, so crisp, so pregnantthat we hasten across this threshold into thepoem itself as into a storehouse of treasuretrove

**Ay, and while your common menLay telegraphs, gauge railroads, reign, reap,dine.And dust the flaunty carpets of the worldFor kings to walk on, or our president,The poet suddenly will catch them upWith his voice like a thunder*This is a soul,

This is life, this word is being said in heaven.Here's God down on us ! what are you about!' "Life's Glory

* * Here is God down on us ' 'that is the secret


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This World and the Other 39of it all. **Wlien Christ, who is our life, shallbe manifested, then shall ye also with him bemanifested in glory.** Only let Jesus Christbe manifest,be realized in our daily life, and thatlife will take on it the radiance of eternity andof God. We shall be part of the eternal schemeour part in the world will be a feature of the** far-off divine event to which the whole crea-tion moves.**

Dr. William V. Kelley gives an illustrationof this tremendous conception in Fornarina, thebaker *s daughter in Eome, whose face has beenused by Eaphael in one of his exquisite Ma-donnas. **She was but a simple maiden livingin a humble home, but, * * writes Dr. Kelley, * ' seehe makes her as immortal as himself, he shareswith her his glory. * * This illustration could bemultiplied many times. Rubens gave one of theMarys in **The Descent from the Cross** theface of his wife. Paul Veronese painted hismother in **The Marriage Feast in Cana.**Browning has made his seventeen-year-oldPompilia of **The Ring and the Book** to liveforever. Shelley sent the Skylark singing downthrough the centuries. Joyce Kilmer hasplanted a Tree that shall never decay. Thesebeautiful tall souls have manifested themselvesto the humble and the obscure, have lifted them


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40 Between Two Worldsto their own level, and endowed them with theirown immortality.When Christ is manifested in our life, when

time takes on the complexion of eternity, whenwe live in the light of the hereafter, life glowswith a new meaning. Just as the sun at even-time, when off down the west making a new dayin some far-off land, touches with pink and goldand pearl the mountain peaks about us, so thelight shining out of the land which is unseenbut toward which our face is turned, will gildwith splendor the upper ranges of life; and ifwe stand high enough we may even see the sunhimself, though he has already had his settingfor the valley.


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THE END OF THE WORLD


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CHAPTER IITHE END OF THE WORLD

Camille Flammarion, the lively French as-tronomer, in his little book, "La Fin du Monde/'schedules five ways by which the earth may bedestroyed

1. By a change in the axis of revolutionwhich, by well-known laws of inertia, wouldsend the oceans sweeping over the continentsand bury the race in a universal deluge.

2. By the failure of the internal fires of theearth and the gradual absorption by the earthof all the water and air on the surface of theglobe.

3. By the dying out of the heat of the sun andthe inevitable freezing of the earth until it be-came a ball of ice drifting through the heavens.

4. By the earth ^s striking a comet and burst-ing into flames through the collision.

5. By the passing of the earth through thetrain of a comet and the asphyxiation of allthat breathe by the gases evolved through thechemical changes that would ensue.

It would not be difficult to add to this cata-logue of post-mortems, if one were inclined to

43


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44 Between Two Worldsventure into the field of conjecture. For ex-ample, the end might come from a failure ofmomentum, a slowing down of the speed withwhich we travel around the sun. Eleven hun-dred miles a minute is this speed, let us say, sothat when we lift our hat to greet a friend onthe street we travel many miles bareheaded be-fore our polite impulse has subsided and ourhat is replaced. Yet this is just speedy enoughto maintain the safe curve of the orbit. Toslow down would be to yield to the mighty tugof gravitation and the earth would go smashinginto the sun. Again, this law of gravitationmight for a season be suspended or the speedof the earth materially increased, in which casethe earth would fly off into space and into atemperature four hundred degrees below zeroout of a conservatory of beauty and warmthcreated by the kindly sun into a Siberian atmos-phere that would congeal the oceans to thebottom in the twinkling of an eye and stiffen therace of men into a race of frozen mummies.

Still another possibility may be mentionedthat of internal convulsions: universal earth-quakes and volcanic eruptions caused by in-tense heat and pressure from within, breakingthe crust and allowing floods of molten lava tooverflow the houses of men. The crust of the


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The End of the World 45earth is a mere eggshell when compared withthe eight thousand miles of liquid fire shut downin its prison. Very easily might the crust breakunder the enormous pressure of this internalcaldron of seething flameand the end wouldbe swift and tumultuous.The Death of WorldsThe heavens are written all over with illus-

trations of these catastrophes. The destructionof a world is the daily pastime of nature. Againand again has the universe been called to wit-ness the passing of a star. The spectroscopegives us regular bulletins of the condition of thesuns which we call fixed stars, notes the stagesof their development until they reach theirprime, and signals the approach of their disso-lution. It is the birth and growth and death ofworlds. The white stars are at their climax.From white to yellow and from yellow to redthey pass; so from the cradle to the grave wefollow the doomed star, to lose it finally in thedarkling void, conquered by old age and thecreeping cold that for centuries has been seek-ing to quench its fires.The moon is a frozen world. Once, perhaps,there was atmosphere and there were oceansand green continents. Once, perhaps, intelli-


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46 Between Two Worldsgent beings ploughed its fields and builded itscities and sailed its seas. But it is now deadand through the long night it floats across thesky a, gigantic monument, a deserted cemetery,a dread and awful tomb in whose bosom lies allthat remains of the once active beings who livedand loved and passed away. The planets Mer-cury and Venus are probably dead worlds.Mars is past his prime, and, if there be lifethere, it is sustained with ever-increasing diffi-culty. Jupiter is hastening to his noon, andwill be ready in some dim remote future to bethe home of intelligence and life.Even the fixed stars are not fixed. When the

Pyramids were built it was not our North Starthat enjoyed this distinction ; it was another starthat occupied the place. The sky is in motion.The Southern Cross in the course of time willfall to pieces, and the Great Dipper be batteredout of shape.A Dread Possibility

All this contains a menace for us. With amighty sweep the sun, accompanied by his greatfamily of satellites, is plunging away towardthat part of the heavens where brawny Herculeslies in wait. At the rate of 600,000 miles a dayare we going, and the heavens are comparatively


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The End of the World 47clear just ahead; but when we reach the newquarters of the skies something may happen atany moment. The North Star, which is amongour first acquaintances, is not alone; it has acompanion which we do not see. The two arechasing each other around a central point, andtogether they are scuttling toward the placewhere we live at the rate of 700,000 miles a day.At that rate they will reach us some day, and acollision will break up all our plans for thefuture.

Professor Lowell seeks to comfort us by sug-gesting the high improbability that we will evercollide with a bright star. Some one has saidthat this would be as improbable as that a shotfired at random into the air would strike a bird.The professor does not promise us immunityfrom dark starsthe burnt-out suns, the weirdand relentless derelicts of the upper seas. Wewould have no knowledge of the presence ofsuch a body until it was near enough to the sunto borrow some of its light. When first seenby the telescope, it would be perhaps five timesas far from the sun as the planet Neptune.Twenty-seven years later it would becomevisible to the unaided eye. In five years it wouldbe as near as Jupiter and surpass the brilliancyof Venus at her best. In one hundred and forty-


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48 Between Two Worldsfive days more it would come close enough tolay its strong fingers of gravitation upon theearth. Chaos would follow. The earth wouldbe swept from its orbit. It would be draggedirresistibly toward the newcomer, and togetherthe earth and its new-found affinitytheywould drop into the sun. All this, in the eventthat any one of the great outworn bodies inspace should wander within range of the hearth-fires of the sun and should attempt to becomeone of the happy family that makes up the solarsystem.The End ComingThe end will come by some agency some day.

The earth is a manufactured article. Once asmall sun, an offspring of the central body, ithas passed all the stages of luminosity and nowshines only by reflection. The end may comeat any moment. We are not sure of a singleday. Another twenty-four hours may ringdown the curtain. There is no guarantee ofstability for the next hour. ''As a thief in thenight" the end is prophesied, ''but of that dayand hour knoweth no man, no, not the angelsof heaven.''There are reasons, however, why we do not

believe that the end of the world is near at hand.


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The End of the World 49In the first place, it has taken so long to get theearth ready for human occupancy. All this iswasted energy if the end is so soon to come.The earth is old. Its mountains are wrinkledwith age. Its very pebbles were born in anunreckoned past and have been ground andpolished by the friction of countless centuries.Thousands of ages has it taken to shape thecontinents and pour out the seas and send therivers singing and rejoicing down the greenvalleys. Why hasten to destroy that which hastaken so many years in building? Why growyour century plant and then pluck it up by theroots on the day its first blossom opens ?The Program of GodMoreover, the earth seems to have been pre-

pared with some definite end in view. God wasthinking about us as a race before we came intobeing. Wisely and patiently and carefully hemade preparation for our coming. A material-istic science scoffs at the idea that the world wasadjusted to our needs. It claims rather thatlife has adapted itself to world conditions asthey exist: that the tiger has grown stripesbecause he can best hide in the jungle whenstripedan early and suggestive case of camou-flage; that the tadpole has developed lungs, so


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The End of the World 51cause in God's opinion the race that was tooccupy the earth was worth preparing for.The Preparation MinuteThe Psalmist sings his thanksgiving song to

God and says, **He causeth the grass to growfor the cattle, and herb for the service of manthat he may bring forth food out of the earth. . . and bread which strengtheneth man'sheart. "^ There is much in that song whichperhaps the Psalmist did not understand. Thegrass for cattle, the herb producing bread, didnot appear on the earth until man was ready tocome. In all the manless geologic ages there isno trace of grain-bearing grasses. Just whenman was due to arrive did such grasses beginto grow and man found his food ready at hand.But stranger yet, with the coming of man firstappeared the flowers that emit an odor. Therewas no sweetness in the mammoth seaweeds ofthe Devonian period, or in the dense forests ofthe carboniferous era, with its giant ferns andclub mosses; no clover field to swing its per-fumed censers in the summer noon; no Juneevening intoxication of odor and delight. NoShakespeare could have written ofP&aJBim:14, 15.


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52 Between Two Worlds^^ Daffodils

That come before the swallow dares . . . violetsdimBut sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes . . .bold oxlips,The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds '*

If there were flowers, they were flowers asodorless as the artificial roses that flaunt them-selves on my lady's bonnet. It has takensosay the wise men50,000,000 years to developthe plant life from its beginnings in the Cam-brian strata. Now why give 50,000,000 yearsto the growth of the oak or the perfection ofthe orchid and cut man off in his childhood?For however long man may have been on theearth, the days since he has been able to takenote of himself and to leave an authentic legiblerecord are few and evil. The horse has had abetter chance. The eohippus, or great-grand-father of the horse, was given at least fivemillion years to get himself ready for the blueribbon on Derby Day, or to carry Sheridan toWinchester when twenty miles away. Yet weare guessing when we say that man has beenon the earth 200,000 years, the age of the Nean-derthal race, while the years of which there isany safe record are but a handful. If there ispurpose in creation, and we find many reasons


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The End of the World 53to hold that there is, it is not possible to believethat the end of the world will be hastened afterso long a period of preparation, and that therace for which all this vast preparation wasmade will thus be cut off before it reaches itsprime. God never breaks his promises.The Preparation AdequateMoreover, there is laid up in the sun light and

heat for centuries to come. The books tell usthat the great furnace yonder in the skies cankeep up its present temperature of 7,000 degreesCentigrade for 5,000,000 years ; and that by con-densation only. We learn that there will be sun-shine enough to cause summer to follow springand fruits to follow blossoms and green grassto grow and golden harvests to ripen and grapesto purple, for a period that dwarfs our timemeasurements and makes the years throughwhich we have passed seem but a spark in agreat conflagration.The discovery of radium has startlingly modi-

fied our thinking on this subject. Heat proceedsfrom the interior of an atom of this strange sub-stance. When this atom breaks up, electrons,as they are called, fly off at a speed of 100,000miles a second and with a heat immeasurablygreater than the heat from ordinary combus-


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54 Between Two Worldstion, and all this with scarcely any diminutionof energy. An atom of radium will send outits heat for 2,500 years. These facts and figuresare so appalling and revolutionary that scien-tists were slow in accepting them. At any rate,we have only to concede that there is radium inthe sunand the astronomers say that there aremillions of tons thereand at once the durationof its heat may be prolonged for measurelessyears.Why, then, destroy the earth, when its ex-

penses are all paid far into the future and thesupply of light and heat is stored away for limit-less use? This is not God^s plan. His ma-chinery wears out. His ships do not go downjust beyond the harbor bar, they usually finishtheir voyage. Before he began to build he satdown first and counted the cost, whether he hadsufficient to finish. *^Lest haply, after he hathlaid the foundation, and is not able to finish it,all that behold it begin to mock him, saying,This man began to build, and was not able tofinish. '

The Preparation PersonalOf course this line of reasoning presupposesa purpose in the mind of God and an immediatepersonal interest in the world and its inhabit-


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The End of the World 55ants. It is difficult sometimes to realize thiswhen wandering far afield. The figures are sovast, the outlook is so appalling, that we areready to say with the Judean singer on theJudean hills, **When I consider thy heavens,the work of thy fingers, the moon and the starswhich thou hast ordained; what is man, thatthou art mindful of him? and the son of manthat thou visitest himT*^The Psalmist would have been much moreperturbed if he could have looked through oneof our telescopes, or gotten a glimpse of a photo-graph of the skies. We occupy such a smallcorner of things. There are spots on the sunon our familiar, everyday suninto which theearth and all its ambitions and its armies couldbe dropped '^like a pea in a thimble** and no-body be the wiser.

Milton tells us that Satan set out from Hellto find the earth and after more or less of adven-ture he discovered it **hanging by a goldenchain, in bigness as a star." Rossetti's BlessedDamosel, looking away from the ramparts ofHeaven, saw the earth spinning **like a fretfulmidge.*' If God were to send a strange angelout from heaven and say to him, **Go find the'Psalm 8:3, 4.


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56 Between Two Worldsearth," it would be like sending a child out uponthe prairies to find a certain flower growingamong the acres of blossoms; or to send himto find a certain grain of sand lost in the milesof beach along the ocean shore. What, indeed,is man that Thou art mindful of him? ^^Hecometh forth like a flower and is cut down: hefleeth also as a shadow and continueth not." Heforgets to turn off the gas fully at night and inthe morning he is dead. He steps on a bit ofbanana skin and there is crape on the door. Atiny bolt works loose in the flying locomotiveand around the next curve of the track a hun-dred mangled bodies lie beneath the burningwreck. How can we ever reach God, who livesyonder at the far end of the telescope? Howcan he ever reach us I Does he know we arehere? Does he care?Stars or the ManBut God is not especially impressed by meresize. It is not bigness that appeals to him. Hemade the Pleiades, but he made also the butter-fly ^s wing that can be broken by a raindrop,and he knows all about it if it should be broken.He pours a bit of liquid sky into the cup of theviolet, and Solomon in all his palaces had no-where a robe of richer color. The planet Jupiter


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The End of the World 57may be bigger than I; it is also bigger thanyonder chattering sparrow; but God says heknows where the sparrow builds its nest, andhe notes when it falls. The North Star mayseem more important than I, but it is also moreimportant than the crocodile basking upon thebanks of the Ganges; yet God takes a wholechapter of the Bible to tell us how much heknows about the crocodile.And men and women are greater than thestars. These are only lumps of matter. Theearth we dig from the cellarif there wereenough of itwould make another star. Thechild who repeats the old-fashioned nurseryditty, * ' Twinkle, twinkle, little star. How I won-der what you are,'' shows himself greater thanthe whole winter skies, for these things neverwonder. The prophet of Israel in a burst ofadoration and amazement said of God that hehad weighed the mountains in scales and thehills in a balance. But there is really nothingextraordinary about that. Men are doing morethan that in these days. They have suspendedthe whole solid earth in the air and have foundits weight in pounds and ounces. Which isgreater, the sun that makes our day and drivesaway the winter, or the man who runs his sur-veyor 's chain around the sun, divides it up into


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58 Between Two Worldsbuilding lots and then can tell you just howmuch the surface area of the sun would be worthat one hundred dollars per front foot? Thecomet comes speeding out of the remote, stayswith us for a few days, then reverses its helmand disappears down the horizon. Wonderfulis that, passing wonderful ! Here goes a littleround-shouldered, near-sighted man, leaning onhis cane and stopping at every corner to catchhis breath. Yet he knows just what the cometis made of, knows just how fast it is going, andwhen it fades out in the far-off blue, he turnsto another round-shouldered, pale-faced dyspep-tic and says, *'It will be back in seventy-fiveyears. ^' Which now is more important to Godthe comet that flames through untraveledspace, or the man who knows all its habits andcan promise its return to the hour, though thatreturn be delayed for a thousand years? Oneounce of gray matter in the brain is worth allthe stars in the Milky Way. One throb of aloving human heart counts for more with Godthan all the mountains of the moon, though theywere made of solid gold, and all the valleysfilled with opals and mother-of-pearl.Time for ProbationWe believe that the human race is important


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The End of the World 59enough to obtain consideration from God, andthat, having made such elaborate, such meticu-lous preparation for its coming, he will notbanish it hence until there has been time forproving.The end of the world is not yet. The awful

throes of the World War that suggested tomany the end of the age may have been but theclearing of the field for new and better venturesthe ringing out of the old, the ringing in of thenew, and a preparation for nobler modes of life,for sweeter manners, and for purer laws. Godhas made sundry promises to the universe andto man, and he will keep these promises untilevery jot and tittle have been fulfilled.


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THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST


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CHAPTER IIITHE SECOND COMING OF CHRISTThe Second Coming of Jesus Christ is the

battleground of twenty centuries. It is as fullof possibilities as the famous apple of Eris,dropped at the marriage feast of Peleus thefather of Achilles. To mention it in a religiousassembly is to divide the assembly. To attemptto decide it may bring on another Trojan War.From the beginning of the Christian era it hasbeen involved in obscurities and contradictions.The man who claims to know claims greaterknowledge than the angels ; for, according to thehighest authority, ^^of that day and hourknoweth no one, not even the angels ofheaven."^ Indeed, Jesus himself confessed toignorance on the mysterious subject. The timeof this event seems to be looked in the bosom ofGod. He alone to whom the grave is naked, anddestruction hath no covering, he alone declares*^the end from the beginning, and from ancienttimes things that are not yet done. '

'^

^Matt. 24: 36.''Isa. 46: 10.

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64 Between Two WorldsScriptural Ambiguity

It does seem that there is intentional ob-scurity in scriptural statements, almost amount-ing to contradiction when this theme is dis-cussed. Words appear to conceal rather thanreveal, as Talleyrand urges is the usual andideal purpose of words.Take for instance the celebrated passage in

Mark 13 :l-30. Here we have prophecies of thedestruction of Jerusalem, strangely involvedwith prophecies of the coming of the Son ofMan. We must accept one of three interpre-tations :

1. That there is a division to be made in thediscourse, a division which does not appear inthe textual construction and which would notnaturally suggest itself to the hearers.

2. That Jesus was himself mistaken and ledhis followers to expect the end in that genera-tion, thus contradicting his teachings in regardto the future of his Church, and abandoninghis world program.

3. That the prophecies of the second part ofthis section are to be read in with the first part,and that these prophecies of his coming inpower and glory were to be fulfilled at thedestruction of Jerusalem; that at this time he


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The Second Coming of Christ 65came in the Spirit and has remained until thisday.Each of these interpretations has been ad-vanced and defended by stalwart champions,

and the final decision is not yet.

TheoriesThere are those who teach that the millennium

has already begun. Some hold that it is a fixedterm of years and will expire at the end of theappointed time; others, that it is an indefiniteperiod and may at any moment and without anywarning be terminated, and that Christ willcome in person attended by the phenomena de-scribed in the gospels and in the Old and NewTestament apocalypse. Still others make thewhole subject spiritual, regard the propheticalsigns and wonders as figures and symbols, lookfor the end of the world in the orderly processesof nature, and teach that the judgment is thepassing of the soul in its chosen pathway up-grade or downgradeeither into new oppor-tunities and larger service, or else into a stateof fixed habits of evil, of perverted ethics, andof atrophied moral sense, which is the death ineternity of the highest functions of the soul andwhich we call eternal death. Each of these


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66 Between Two Worldstheories is supported by more or less definitestatements of Scripture.^The CreedsThe Church in all ages has believed that

Christ will come again. It has been a part ofher creeds and her hymns and her prayers. Inone of the early declarations, the Apostles'Creed, as we call it, which may be tracedback to the fifth century, we read, *^He (Jesus)ascended into heaven; and sitteth on the righthand of God the Father Almighty. Fromthence he shall come to judge the quick and thedead.'' The Nicene Creed, which is even olderthan the Apostles' Creed, declares, ^'He as-cended into heaven; he cometh to judge thequick and the dead." This creed was adoptedat the Council of Nice, 325 A. D. At Constanti-nople in 381 A. D. this formula was amendedto read, ^^He shall come again with glory tojudge both the quick and the dead ; whose king-dom shall have no end." Why it was thoughtnecessary to add the phrase ^*with glory"{meta doxas) to the Nicene Creed adopted onlya few years before, need not now be discussed

' See Holtzman, ''Die Synoptischen Evangelien" for "anapocalyptic coming at the end of the world, a historicalcoming at any great crisis, and a dynamical coming in thehearts of believers."


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The Second Coming of Christ 67but there is a suggestion of the spectacular, thehistrionic, which does not appear in the earlierpronouncement. *^The boast of heraldry, thepomp of power'' had begun to be felt in theChurchmarried to the State, the Church hadbegun to mimic the State.

In all the three great creeds of the Church,the Nicene Creed, the Creed of Constantinople,and the Creed of Athanasius, the coming ofChrist is associated with the end of the worldand the Day of Judgment. This also is thespirit of the hymns of the Church. Note thegreat hymn that comes to us out of the heartof the Dark Ages, the * * Dies Irae. ' ' In this weread:

* *Day of Wrath ! of days that DayEarth in flames shall pass away.Heathen seers and prophets say.What swift terrors then shall fall,When descends the Judge of all,Every action to recall.Hark ! the trump with wondrous toneWakes the graves of nations gone.Forcing all before the throne. ' '^

This *^hymn of the giants'' sounds the samecall that is heard in the hymn credited to

* Translation by Slosson.


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68 Between Two WorldsCharles Wesley and John Cennickrather aremarkable partnership, by the way, when weremember Mr. Wesley's opinion of his casualcollaborator in this particular production. Thisis the h}TQn

"Lo! He comes with clouds descending,Once for favored sinners slainThousand thousand saints attending:Swell the triumph of his train.

Hallelujah!God appears on earth to reign. *The Early ChurchThere was a general impression in the early

centuries that the end of the world would notbe long delayed. Paul seemed to be of thismind. His letter to the Thessalonians intimatesthat he expects to be alive at the second appear-ing of Christ. ^^For this we say unto you bythe word of the Lord, that we that are alive, thatare left unto the coming of the Lord, shall inno wise precede them that are fallen asleep. Forthe Lord himself shall descend from heaven,with a shout, with the voice of the archangel,and with the trump of God: and the dead inChrist shall rise first; then we that are alive,that are left, shall together with them be caughtup in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and


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The Second Coming of Christ 69so shall we ever be with the Lord. Whereforecomfort one another with these words. "^ Heeven confirms it by the phrase

' ' for this we sayunto you by the word of the Lord,'' as if heclaimed divine inspiration as the ground of hisbelief. In his great chapter to the Corinthians,the chapter in which he builds up step by stepthe majestic argument for immortality, he againincludes himself among those who are to bealive at the great day. ^* Behold, I tell you amystery: We all shall not sleep, but we shallall be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling ofan eye, at the last trump : for the trumpet shallsound, and the dead shall be raised incorrupti-ble, and we shall be changed."^ In this sameletter to the Corinthians, in the ninth verse ofthe fourth chapter, he uses a most strikingfigure: *^For I think that God hath set forthus the apostles last of all, as men foredoomedto death, seeing that we are become a spectacle(theatron) to the intelligent universe." He isalluding to the Isthmian games. The theateris appointed; the spectacle proceeds; the uni-verse gives interested heed; the last act isreached; the audience will soon disperse, andas a closing number on the program the apostles

I Thess. 4: 15-18.I Cor. 15:51, 52.


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70 Between Two IForIdsare led into the arena. Their sacrificial deathis to be the conclusion and the climax of theperformance, and then the curtain is to fall.While this may not suggest the expectation thathe will live to see the end, it does suggest thatin Paul's opinion the world is in its final stage,and the apostolic era is the closing era.Returning to the letter to the Thessalonians,

we note that Paul speaks of the conversion ofthese his followers as a turning away fromidols *'to serve a living and true God, and towait for his Son from heaven. ' ' Evidently thiswas part of his preaching, and he trained theyoung converts to look for this second comingas an event of the near future.PauVs Change of FrontLater in life this expectation becomes less

assured. He begins to contemplate his owndeath: absent from the body and present withthe Lord."^ In his farewell address at Ephesus,just before going up to Jerusalem, he speaksof finishing his course and his ministry: *^ButI hold not my life of any account as dear untomyself, so that I may accomplish my course, andthe ministry which I received from the Lord'II Cor. 5: 8.


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The Second Coming of Christ JiJesus. ''^ And in his closing charge to Timothy,the last of his messages to the Church, lookingout through the narrow window of the Mamer-tine prison and listening for the tread of theexecutioner whose sword is to end his life, hesurrenders the last hope of witnessing in hisday the Day of the Lord, and writes his mag-nificent valedictory to the saints and to theworld: **I am now ready to be offered up, andthe time has come to loose the tent cords. Ihave fought the good fight, I have finished thecourse, I have kept the faith. It remains onlythat there is laid up for me the crown of right-eousness which the Lord the righteous Judgeshall award me in that Day; and not only mebut unto all men also who have set their love onhis appearing.*'^ He seems to have given uphis fond hope of fifteen years ago, that he wouldbe present at the revelation of the Son of God.So much had happened in that interval. TheChurch had stripped itself for a long race ; theman of lawlessness must first come;^^ and he

contents himself with the realization that he hasdone well on his part, and the time of theloosening of the tent ropes, or the anchor-lifting

^ See Acts 20: 24.II Tim. 4: 6-8.^II Thess. 2: 3.


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72 Between Two Worldsas the words are interpretedfinds him ready-to go to his Lord, since his Lord has not seenfit to come to him.

It is possible, however, that instead of chang-ing his mind as to the date of Christ's comingPaul has changed his mind as to the manner ofhis coming. His conception of the Messiahshiphas become spiritualized. The kingdom ofChrist is more and more realized to be '^ right-eousness and peace and joy in the HolySpirit. "^^ It has already begun, perhaps, asthose who believe are already delivered ^'outof the power of darkness" and translated *^intothe kingdom of the Son of his love.'^^^ TheParousia, perhaps, was not something thatwould come in the future, but it was the begin-ning of the world-wide conquest of JesusChrist ; and so, when the authority of the Jewishsystem passed away, that conquest had alreadysplendidly begun. Perhaps Paul had reachedthis conception.Modified ViewsThe other apostles seemed to share the same

idea, that the end was at hand. The practicalJames admonishes his brethren to be patient"Rom. 14: 17."Col. 1: 13.


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The Second Coming of Christ 73in the midst of their poverty and distress, for*Hhe coming of the Lord is at hand."^^ Peter,writing to the Christian outlanders, the Jewswho were scattered abroad and who were theelect of God, also declares pointblank that **theend of all things is at hand."^"* Later, in thesecond epistle, if we may grant that it is bythe same hand, we see how but a short timehas modified the views of the writer. *'Whereis the promise of his coming? for from the daythat the fathers fell asleep, all things continueas they were from the beginning of the creation.. . . But forget not this one thing, beloved, thatone day is with the Lord as a thousand years,and a thousand years as one day."^^ It is asif the writer were trying to say: ^^ Perhaps itis farther away than at first supposed. PerhapsJesus, like the Psalmist, sometimes used poeti-cal phraseology. Perhaps we must take hiswords in an accommodated sense. It is not wellto be impatient; it is not safe to be dogmatic;and at the same time it is not wise to be un-wary. 'With such an example as this, we may sum-

mon audacity enough to say that the Bible does"James 5: 8."I Peter 4: 7."11 Peter 3: 4. 8.


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74 Between Two Worldsnot always mean what it seems to say. It doesnot always call a spade a spade. It is full ofpoetry, and we have the word of Macaulay inhis great essay on Milton that ''no one can bea poet or even enjoy poetry, without a certainunsoundness of mind^'; and Plato's '' Republic ''is responsible for the irreverent statement that''Poets utter great and wise things which theydo not themselves understand."Every day after the ascension of Jesus the

disciples looked for the return of their Lord.The two men (Moses and Elijah?) had said tothem at that time, "This same Jesus which istaken up from you into heaven shall so comein like manner as ye have seen him go intoheaven." And so they returned to Jerusalemwith great joy. Every day they listened anx-iously for the trump of the archangel and theshout of awakened hosts. Every evening theylooked for him who should come as a thief inthe night.

Daily ExpectationThe Christian martyrs kept up the expecta-

tion. They longed for deliverance. They wentinto the den of evil beasts awaiting the earth-quake that should shake the pillars of the moun-


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The Second Coming of Christ 75tains and break their iron chains. They lookedup through the flames at the stake hoping to seethe heavens opened and the Son of Man de-scending to snatch them out of a still greaterconflagration in which the world was to beburned.

This expectation and belief that Jesus wouldsoon come, and come in person, to establish hiskingdom was attacked by Augustine, who taughtthat the Church was the Kingdom of Godalready established and that the millenniumwas an accomplished fact. There was, however,a great and general uneasiness at the approachof the year 1000. Again in the thirteenth cen-tury the old belief, held all the while by smalland fugitive bodies of Christians, came to thefront in the teaching of Joachim of Floris, whoclaimed that there would be a great worldchange in A. D. 1260. The Pope himself wasdeeply interested in the findings of this cele-brated scholar. At the time of the Eeformationthe subject was revived, only to be abandonedby the Reformed Church. The year 1666 wasespecially significant, as not only was it chosenby Christian Pietists as the beginning of themillennium, but Sabbathai Zewi, a Spanish Jew,fired by this expectation, claimed to be theMessiah and planned to abrogate the law, re-


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76 Between Two Worldsstore Palestine, and introduce a new trinitythe Ancient of Days, the Messiah, and thefemale Shekinah.The fathers will perhaps remember the ex-

citement of 1844, when all the west was stirredby definite and emphatic prophecies of the im-mediate coming of Christ, and they will recallthe widespread preparation that was made forthat event. Sincere and eager Christiansthroughout the affected territory closed up theirearthly business, distributed their earthly pos-sessions to any whose covetousness might begreater than their caution, and prepared forflight. The year 1866 was also designated asthe time of the end ; then 1870 ; later 1876 ; whilelarge publicity was given to the claim of a well-known interpreter of prophecy that the worldage would reach its climax in 1914, and JesusChrist would open his reign on earth. TheGreat War beginning in that year stirred theprophets to increased zeal, and magazines andnewspapers were filled with weird prognostica-tions and vague calculations that sought to findin this conflict the awful war of Armageddon,and the imminent overthrow of the nations.The Prophecies

All these predictions are the result of calcula-


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The Second Coming of Christ JJtions based upon scriptural prophecies. Forinstance, William Miller, interpreting the state-ment in Daniel 8 : 14 that after two thousandand three hundred days^'evenings and morn-ings''the sanctuary should be cleansed, orjustified, calculates that the end is to come in1843. This he claims is the meaning of thisstrange verse. Now herein is a marvelousthing. Did not the angels have access to theprophecies of Daniel ? And if this be the inter-pretation, why could not the angels reach thesame conclusion? Then how could it be saidsome centuries after the prophecies of Danielwere written that the angels do not know whatMr. Miller is so confidently revealing?Again in Revelation 10 we read of a strong

angel whose face was as the sun, and his feetas pillars of fire, who stood with his right footon the sea and his left foot on the land, andhis voice was as the roaring of a lion; thisstrong angel lifted up his right hand to heavenand swore a great oath that time, or delay,should be no longer. Now Bengel, the cele-brated German professor, the father of textualcriticism and the author of the ^^ Gnomon NoviTestamenti/' takes this statement of the angeland by elaborate analysis discovers that thejear 1836 is to spell conclusion. Very well,


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78 Between Two Worldsdid not the angel understand the meaning ofhis own words, or was he selected because hewas the only one in heaven who knew the timeof the coming of the Son of Man, or had it bythis time become general knowledge among theangels ?

These questions might be asked in referenceto other prophecies just as obscure and otherconclusions just as dogmatic. They may soundairy and trivial ; but reductio ad ahsurdum can-not always be made to seem reverent, thoughthe cause of reverence may be vastly servedsometimes by that process of reasoning.The Purpose of His ComingAnd now, aside from ambiguous prophecies

and conflicting interpretations of times and sea-sons, let us inquire why Jesus is to come. Is itnot to establish his kingdom on the earth! Andwhat if that kingdom be already established?The Pharisees were interested, as are we, to

know the time of his coming, and ironically theyinquired, "When is the kingdom of which wehear so much to appear?'' And Jesus answered,**The kingdom of God is among you,''^^ not, asusually rendered, "The kingdom is within you.'*"Luke 17: 21.


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The Second Coming of Christ 79I think it will not be maintained that there wasthat within these sneering Pharisees which an-swered to the new kingdom of Christ, and, asthe original will just as easily bear the construc-tion given above, and as this seems indeed theclassical usage, it is more rational to give it suchinterpretation.The kingdom was not to come with observa-

tion. It was not to be attended by any *^Lo,here! or lo, there!" It was not to be waitedfor and watched for and then to break in over-whelming phenomena upon the world. It hadalready come as the morning comes. It wasalready working, as leaven works in the meas-ures of meal. The seed was growing silently,surely, growing to the harvest.At another time, when these same Pharisees

muttered among themselves that it was de-moniac power by which Jesus was driving outevil spirits, Jesus impaled them upon two hornsof a dilemma. If he cast out devils by Beelze-bub, then the disciples of the Pharisees, who alsocast out devils or claimed the power to do so,were in league with the same uncanny prince.But on the other hand if he by the Spirit ofGod cast out devils, then the Kingdom of Godhad come upon them unawares.^^"Matt, 12: 28,


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8o Between Two WorldsThe Constructive KingdomAgain he declares that he that is least in the

Kingdom of God is greater than John the Bap-tist.^^ This was because the work of construc-tion had begun and it is always greater thanthe work of destruction. John was a destroyer.He had with fierce invective attacked the evilsof the day. He was great as an iconoclast, asurgeon, an executioner; but the humblestbuilder who builds, the man who brings thetiniest contribution to the enterprise, who makestwo blades of grass grow where there has beenbut one, who brings a wisp of straw for thebrickmaking, or sings a song to cheer thedrawers of water or the hewers of woodhemeans more for the growth of good than all theprophets who have ever merely criticized andcastigated the evil. The

(1919) between two worlds: the new day and old questions (death)

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