Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/301

 causes have brought about a dangerous crisis in the affairs of men, the perils which they threaten can only be prevented by means of a judgment. And surely, when events transpire in society which show that evil causes must have been dispersed, we have demonstration that a judgment must have been performed. This, then, is the case submitted to the consideration of the reader; the judgment which we believe to have taken place about the middle of the last century consisted in the removal of abandoned spirits from the world of spirits, and thus in a breaking up of the malevolent influences which they exercised on men. We appeal to the altered condition of society as a proof of that occurrence.

This judgment was declared to have taken place before any evidences of such a fact could transpire among mankind, and in the very midst of circumstances requiring such a remedy. Since that time the evidences have come; and does not this also prove the preternatural origin of that announcement? If reasoning can conduct to a satisfactory conclusion, surely this may be accepted. Men have been accustomed to look forward to this judgment as an event which was to overthrow the universe, because that has been the opinion of the Church. The prophecies upon the subject have been darkened by that misrepresentation, and hence mankind have been led to expect what the Scriptures were never intended to teach. This event, though very extraordinary in itself, was not intended to destroy the natural world, but to restore order in the spiritual world. It was, as it were, the removing of a cloud that had darkened the Church, and providing a sunshine by which to illuminate its future progress. And this, like all the orderly providences of God, was accomplished without being immediately recognised in the world of men; though it