SCIENTIFIC TIME-SETTERS.
By Wm. Penniman
These men are looking for those things which shall come upon the earth. The following article, headed “Day of Judgment,” taken from the New York Mercury, and also published in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat of March 17, shows that Adventists are not the only ones who can see the signs of the earth’s overthrow. These philosophical writers take a common-sense view of the signs in the earth, sun, etc., believing that they show the end is near; yet the folly of attempting to set the time is just as apparent from a scientific stand-point as it is from a biblical one; for the correct rendering of Matt. 24 : 36, is, “But that day and hour no man maketh known, neither the angels which are in Heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.” This reading is indorsed by some of the ablest critics of the age. “The heavens above, the earth beneath, the waters under the earth, and the atmosphere which envelops our planet, have recently exhibited such portentous phenomena as to fill the minds of all Christendom with wonder and apprehension. Men of profound research, like M. Victor Herault, De la Rue, Carrington, and others, who have struggled assiduously to wring the secret of our world’s destiny from Nature, are no longer treated as mere distempered visionaries. Those cosmical changes that the telescope and the spectrum reveal in the heavens, and the terrible meteorological demonstrations that dotted our coast-line with shipwrecks, lead us, by solemn steps, back into the Infinite. There is not an astronomer or scientist worth the name living to-day but accepts the statement that ‘both the earth and its inhabitants have passed the prime of their development,’ as a self-evident fact. They predicate this condition as respects the earth just as confidently as we popularly assert a man of sixty is past his physical prime.” “The subject of the death of the earth may not be a pleasant one; but some of the foremost minds of the age have said death may occur to the earth at any moment, just as to the individual who has entered upon ‘second childhood and mere oblivion.’ It may be by a slow process of natural decay, or it may be sudden. The fact that the globe has entered into its death period, it will be remembered, has nothing whatever to do with the intellectual development of man. The earthquake, the volcano, the thunderbolt, and the hurricane spread havoc and destruction irrespective of man’s wishes or man’s prayers, and the globe’s final convulsion, we are assured, will overtake us ‘as a thief in the night.’ ‘Then we which are alive,’ says St. Paul, 1 Thess. 4 : 17, ‘and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.’ This does not seem much like a peaceful millennium! In the same belief Bishop Heber writes:—
“‘The Lord shall come! The earth shall quake!
The mountains to their center shake;
And withering from the vault of night,
The stars shall pale their feeble light.’” “Respecting the date of the final convulsion that will, in the twinkling of an eye, wind up the human life of our planet, some extraordinary evidence has recently been discovered on the banks of the Nile, in the ancient land of the Pharaohs. Without entering into the scientific minutiæ of the examinations, it may be briefly stated that by an analogical reasoning he [Prof. Leverrier] interpreted the characters beneath a certain group of figures, whose appearance betokened paroxysmal terror, to signify 469. Beneath this number was the cuneiform 4 accompanied by another symbol, which the professor interprets to signify the sign of multiplication, inasmuch as it bears a close resemblance to the Persian symbol of ‘into’ as at present used in the Shah’s dominions. Whether this position be well taken or not we have, of course, no means of ascertaining; but the result is sufficiently startling. Four times 469 make 1876—the present year of grace, while the human figures in paroxysmal attitudes seem to exemplify the overpowering dread that shall fall upon mankind in ‘that great and terrible day,’ impelling them ‘to call upon the rocks to fall upon them and to the hills to cover them.’ This interpretation by the famous Russian savant is, of course, entirely arbitrary, and may be accepted by the candid, unprejudiced reader for what it is worth.” Of the signs in the sun Prof. Leverrier remarks:— “‘It seems to me, if I have approximately estimated the gigantic force of this solar disturbance, that we may expect a series of fierce tornadoes to sweep over and devastate certain portions of the earth’s surface in the immediate future.’ How accurate this vaticination has proved, our experience during the present month sufficiently demonstrates. “An Austrian scientist, commenting on Prof. Leverrier’s observations, remarks: ‘Whether this extraordinary solar action is due to the motions of Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter, as De la Rue supposes, or to an organic change in the sun’s constitution, does not at present appear. The spots near the sun’s equator are undoubtedly cavities, but whether they are holes piercing the actual body of the orb is another question. It might almost seem that under the cloudy surface of the sun there is an ocean of liquid, and slags are formed at present in this ocean, and there is a blowing out of matter which gives rise to the extraordinary penumbral phenomena witnessed by Prof. Leverrier. There is undoubtedly an immense underfeed from the outside toward the center, but whether by a rush downward from the center of the foci of disturbance can not be determined.” “The present action, at all events, has had the effect of showering upon the earth a large additional increment of solar heat. So far the effect has not been objectionable, but in the immediate future the consequences may prove disastrous. The sun has emitted an enormous amount of extra heat, and this emission may jeopardize his very existence, as well as the stability of the system he controls. By comparing, as it were, his own vitality, his reciprocal action upon our globe will be materially diminished. The restraint hitherto exercised upon the molten ocean that surges within our planet has been chiefly solar, and if this influence has been lessened, as there are too many grounds to believe, a series of terrific earthquakes in regions hitherto comparatively free from them may inaugurate a final and comprehensive convulsion.” “‘An eminent mathematician in this city was recently asked what were the probabilities of the coincidence above alluded to being accidental. After a long and intricate calculation, into which the differential and integral calculus largely entered, he announced the result in the following terms: “The interpretation of prophecy places the end of the world in 1876; the inductions of science place the end of the world at no great distance of time; the interpretation of the Egyptian hieroglyphics, which have correctly exhibited the mathematical laws of the solar system long anterior to their discovery by man, prefigure a terrible calamity to the human race in 1876; the chances, then, against this coincidence being accidental are about four millions to one.”’