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 rich valley 1200 ft. above the sea surrounded by the spurs of the Levezou, Causse Noir and Larzac ranges. The streets are narrow and some of the houses of great antiquity, but the town is surrounded by spacious boulevards. One of its squares is bordered on two sides by wooden galleries supported on stone columns. The only buildings of special interest are the Romanesque church of Notre Dame, restored in the 16th century, and the fine Gothic belfry of the old hôtel de ville. Millau is seat of a sub-prefect, and possesses tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a board of trade-arbitrators, a chamber of commerce and a communal college. The principal industry is the manufacture of gloves, and various branches of the leather industry are carried on. The chief articles of trade are skins, wool, wine and Roquefort cheese.

In the middle ages Millau was the seat of a viscounty held by the counts of Barcelona and afterwards by the counts of Armagnac. In the 16th century it became one of the leading strongholds of Calvinism in southern France. In 1620 it revolted against Louis XIII., and after its submission Richelieu caused its fortifications to be dismantled. The edict of Nantes hastened the decline of the town, which did not recover its prosperity till after the Revolution.

MILLBURY, a township of Worcester county, Massachusetts, on the Blackstone river, 5 m. S.S.E. of Worcester. Pop. (1890), 4428; (1900) 4460 (1176 foreign-born); (1905, state census) 4631; (1910) 4740. Area, 15·79 sq. m. Millbury is served by the New York, New Haven & Hartford, and the Boston & Albany railways, and by electric interurban railways. It lies for the most part in the valley of the Blackstone river, from which water-power is derived for its mills; among its manufactures are cotton, linen, felt and woollen goods, hemp thread, and foundry and machine-shop products. The municipality owns and operates the waterworks and electric-lighting plant. Millbury was formed in 1813 from the North Parish of Sutton; in 1851 a part of Auburn was annexed to the township.

MILLEDGEVILLE, a city and the county-seat of Baldwin county, in the central part of Georgia, U.S.A., on the Oconee river, at the head of navigation, 32 m. E.N.E. of Macon. Pop. (1890), 3322; (1900), 4219 (2663 negroes); (1910), 4385. It is served by the Georgia and the Central of Georgia railways. Milledgeville is situated in the Cotton Belt, and its principal industry is the preparation of cotton for the markets. The importance of the place, however, is mainly educational and historical. It is the seat of the Middle Georgia Military and Agricultural College, which occupies the old capitol building, and of the Georgia Normal and Industrial College for girls (1889; enrolment 1908–1909, 653), which is a part of the University of Georgia, and occupies the site of the old state penitentiary. About 2 m. north-west of Milledgeville is the state juvenile reformatory; 2 m. south of the city are the state asylums for white and negro insane; and 3 m. north-west is the state prison farm. Milledgeville was founded in 1803, and was named in honour of John Milledge (1757–1818), a representative in Congress in 1792–1793 and 1795–1802, governor of Georgia in 1802–1806, a United States senator in 1806–1809, and a benefactor of the state university. In 1804 it was made the seat of the state government in place of Louisville (capital in 1795–1804; pop. in 1900, 1009), a dignity it held until 1868. The city was first chartered in 1836. Although admirably situated for trade and manufacturing, Milledgeville was surpassed in both by Macon, which became the commercial emporium of middle Georgia; but it was a favourite place of residence for the wealthy and cultivated class of Georgians before the Civil War. It was seized by General William T. Sherman on the 23rd of November 1864. In order to remove the state documents beyond reach of the enemy, Governor Joseph E. Brown called upon the convicts in the penitentiary for aid, granting them pardons in return for their services.

MILLENNIUM (a pseudo-Latin word formed on the analogy of biennium, triennium, from Lat. mille, a thousand, and annus, year), literally a period of a thousand years. The term is specially used of the period of 1000 years during which Christ, as has been believed, would return to govern the earth in person. Hence it is used to describe a vague time in the future when all flaws in human existence will have vanished, and perfect goodness and happiness will prevail. The attribution of a mystic significance to the millennium-period, though perhaps not prominent in that theory of Christian eschatology to which the names Millenarianism and Chiliasm (from Gr. , a thousand) are given, is quite common in non-Christian religions and cosmological systems.

Faith in the nearness of Christ’s second advent and the establishing of his reign of glory on the earth was undoubtedly a strong point in the primitive Christian Church. In the anticipations of the future prevalent amongst the early Christians (c. 50–150) it is necessary to distinguish a fixed and a fluctuating element. The former includes (1) the notion that a last terrible battle with the enemies of God was impending; (2) the faith in the speedy return of Christ; (3) the conviction that Christ will judge all men, and (4) will set up a kingdom of glory on earth. To the latter belong views of the Antichrist, of the heathen world-power, of the place, extent, and duration of the earthly kingdom of Christ, &c. These remained in a state of solution; they were modified from day to day, partly because of the changing circumstances of the present by which forecasts of the future were regulated, partly because the indications—real or supposed—of the ancient prophets always admitted of new combinations and constructions. But even here certain positions were agreed on in large sections of Christendom. Amongst these was the expectation that the future kingdom of Christ on earth should have a fixed duration—according to the most prevalent opinion, a duration of one thousand years. From this fact the whole ancient Christian eschatology was known in later times as “chiliasm”—a name which is not strictly accurate, since the doctrine of the millennium was only one feature in its scheme of the future.

1. This idea that the Messianic kingdom of the future on earth should have a definite duration has—like the whole eschatology of the primitive Church—its roots in the Jewish apocalyptic literature, where it appears at a comparatively late period. At first it was assumed that the Messianic kingdom in Palestine would last for ever (so the prophets; cf. Jer. xxiv. 6; Ezek. xxxvii. 25; Joel iv. 20; Dan. vi. 27; Sibyll. iii. 49 seq., 766; Psalt. Salom. xvii. 4; Enoch lxii. 14), and this seems always to have been the most widely accepted view (John xii. 34). But from a comparison of prophetic passages of the Old Testament learned apocalyptic writers came to the conclusion that a distinction must be drawn between the earthly appearance of the Messiah and the appearance of God Himself amongst His people and in the Gentile world for the final judgment. As a necessary consequence, a limited period had to be assigned to the Messianic kingdom. According to the Apocalypse of Baruch (xl. 3) this kingdom will last “donec finiatur mundus corruptionis.” In the Book of Enoch (xci. 12) “a week” is specified, in the Apocalypse of Ezra (vii. 28 seq.) four hundred years. This figure, corresponding to the four hundred years of Egyptian bondage, occurs also in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 99a). But this is the only passage; the Talmud has no fixed doctrine on the point. The view most frequently expressed there (see Von Otto in Hilgenfeld’s Zeitschrift, 1877, p. 527 seq.) is that the Messianic kingdom will last for one thousand (some said two thousand) years. “In six days God created the world, on the seventh He rested. But a day of God is equal to a thousand years (Ps. xc. 4). Hence the world will last for six thousand years of toil and labour; then will come one thousand years of Sabbath rest for the people of God in the kingdom of the Messiah.” This idea must have already been very common in the first century before Christ. The combination of Gen. i., Dan. ix. and Ps. xc. 4 was peculiarly fascinating.

Nowhere in the discourses of Jesus is there a hint of a limited duration of the Messianic kingdom. The apostolic epistles are equally free from any trace of chiliasm (neither 1 Cor. xv. 23 seq. nor 1 Thess. iv. 16 seq. points in this direction). In Revelation however, it occurs in the following shape (ch. xx.). After