A GENERAL EXPECTATION OF ALL NATIONS by Dudley Marvin Canright

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 2, 1868

A GENERAL EXPECTATION OF ALL NATIONS.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

All nations seem just now to be anxiously expecting some great event, the coming of some great deliverer, or of some awful catastrophe. The following from a book of high authority lately published is to the point.

“The idea of a great terminal crisis is met with so often in reviewing the history of human efforts to grasp and solve the problem of the world’s destiny, that we must consider it a normal concomitant of such theorizing. The mind reels and loses itself in trying to conceive of the everlasting continuance of the present order, or of any one fixed course of things, but finds relief in the notion of a revolution, an end, and a fresh start. The Mexican Cataclysm or universal crash, the close of the Hindu Calpa, the Russian Resurrection, the Stoic Conflagration, the Scandinavian Ragnarok, the Christian Day of Judgment, all embody the one thought. The Drama of Humanity is played out, the curtain falls, and when it rises again, all is commenced afresh. The clock of creation runs down and has to be wound up anew. The Brahmins are now expecting the tenth avatar of Vishnu. The Parsees look for Sosiosch to come to consummate the triumph of good, and to raise the dead upon a renewed earth. The Buddhists await the birth of Maitri Buddha, who is tarrying in the dewa-loka Tusita until the time of his advent upon earth. The Jews are praying for the appearance of the Messiah. And many Christians affirm that the second advent of Jesus dawns.”—

Such a general expectation immediately preceded the first advent of Jesus. So it is now. Let us be ready.

D. M. CANRIGHT.

Boston, Mass.