Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/289

 of great importance to the Church below; because it separates them from that hold which they had taken upon the human mind in the world, and provides for the restoration of a purer teaching for the acceptance of mankind.

The distresses which have alarmed the Church, and the successes by which she has been encouraged, may be reasonably taken as so many evidences in the natural world that some remarkable phenomena have taken place in the spiritual. Such external effects must have had internal causes. It has indeed been usual to ascribe such events to the mental disposition and character of the age in which they have occurred, and to this conclusion no fair objection can be urged; but beyond this there is a source which the above view does not contemplate. The minds of men are not self-created things, nor are their activities wholly dependent upon themselves. The Scriptures certainly lead us to conclude that our evil states are the results of wicked influences to which we have yielded, and also that every favourable condition has been the result of heavenly guidance; and experience confirms what revelation unfolds. What is thus true of individuals is also true of the mass, for multitudes are composed of units: the general state arises from the collective condition of individuals. It is therefore evident that the moral aspects of mankind are, at all periods of their history, indications of the state and quality of the spiritual world with which they are associated: an epoch of danger and distress in the Church is, therefore; clearly referable to some malevolent influence acting upon