p. 150 | The Coming of Christ by Henry F. Phelps

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 10, 1866

The Coming of Christ.

By Henry F. Phelps

"It will not be for a thousand years; at least it will not be in my day." "The teaching of such a doctrine is false, for Christ says, 'of that day and hour knoweth no man.'"

So says the objector to our view of the soon coming of Christ and the end of the world. It is but a false endeavor to calm their minds. It will prove a snare to their souls. That day will overtake them as a snare. They are fulfilling the word that says, they shall cry "peace and safety." How terrible will be the consequences. "Sudden destruction cometh upon them, and they shall not escape." That time is coming. The end is approaching. The world is ripening for destruction. Babylon is filling up her cup. Crime is on the increase. There is hardly a paper published, but its pages are full of the recital of crime. "Stupendous robberies," "Daring burglary," "Horrible and fiendish murders."

In my last paper, St. Paul Press, I sum up the following:

"One and a half million of dollars in bonds stolen." "Three thousand three hundred dollars obtained from the Central National Bank, through forgery by boys." "A union man shot by a returned rebel soldier. The brother of the deceased raising a company, followed him, and overtaking him riddled him with bullets." "A man murdered in his own house; his wife supposed to be accessory to the crime." "Discovery of the murderer of the Joyce children." "Horrible affair:—A robber beats a child to death with a Bible. Two other children horribly beaten and left for dead."

Add to this terrible record, accidents and losses by conflagrations, steam explosions, rail-road disasters, and the catalogue is full. The heart sickens at the recital. The eyes grow dim at the sight, and we turn in disgust from the scene. No wonder that Jeremiah said, "A horrible thing is committed in the land." Truly, "Wicked men and seducers are waxing worse and worse." And here see a word of blasphemy:

"Dr. Cumming's prediction that the world will come to grief in 1867, is irreverently commented upon by the Augusta (Georgia) Constitutionalist, which says, 'We are firmly persuaded that this will prove to be a "great cry and little wool;" for, shave the pig-headed world as you may, bristles alone fall into the apron of the inspired barber. All this raving about the end of the world, is mere bosh and indigestion. A bad stomach is the origin of a vast deal of the lugubrious religion of our fellow creatures, and Dr. Cumming will do well either to go to a water-cure establishment or sanitary commission, before he dons his ascension robe on the judgment day of 1867. We stake our money on the planet and think it safe.'"

This needs no comment. It is evidently a dive at the whole class of men who teach that the end is near. Thus everything tends to swell the cry of peace. And as these signs thicken around us like clouds before a gathering storm, let us hail them as signs that betoken our deliverance.

HENRY F. PHELPS.

Pine Island, Minn.