DR. MOULE, Bishop of Durham, may have been incorrectly interpreted in his statements concerning the second coming of Christ, so far as specific dates are concerned; but as to his belief in the nearness of the event there is no question. “We shall expect,” says Dr. Moule, “with a hope humble but deep-founded to see soon the hour when death shall die and the grave be buried; for ‘they that sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him,’ when He comes again, and we are looking for His coming soon. Then shall we ‘together with them’ ‘be forever with the Lord.’”
Some have sought to make the bishop say that the “end of the world” would take place in 1920. This he categorically denies. He separates the cataclysmic dissolution of the world from the appearance of the Lord in the clouds of heaven; and while he does not believe that the earth is coming to its long-foretold destruction within the next few months, he does claim that the appearance of the Saviour and the resurrection are events very near at hand. He draws his conclusions from his study of the Apocalypse and other scriptures, and while we cannot accept all the bishop’s prophetical exegeses, we are certain that his belief in the nearness of the great event is founded upon the immutable Word. Concerning the bishop’s address in which his belief was set forth, the Expository Times has this to say:—
No one can read the address without perceiving that it is the address of a good man. The language throbs with devotion to the Redeemer; it meets the demands of a disciplined conscience for the closest approximation to truth. And the scholarship is just as apparent. It is under the heaviest sense of responsibility that Dr. Moule has come to his conclusion.
Many another has come to the same conclusion, arriving at that conclusion from the study both of Scripture and the daily doings of the world. Every great modern event bears witness to the accuracy of prophetic scripture. The developments in the industrial world point a reverent finger backward to the scriptures in both the Old and New Testament which foretold them in detail. Such scriptures are found in James 5: 1-9; Isa. 2:7-21; and Heb. 2: 6-8. In the days there depicted the gold and the silver are unable to protect the wealthy against those who would make them a spoil. Habakkuk 2:6-8 reads: “Woe to him that increaseth that which is not his! how long? and to him that ladeth himself with thick clay [mortgages and notes of hand inscribed on clay tablets]. Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite thee, and awake that shall vex thee, and thou shalt be for booties unto them? Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the people shall spoil thee.” There is Bolshevism as plainly as it need be depicted making war upon the capitalistic class. But when that condition would be found in the world, the day of our Lord’s return would be near at hand, according to James 5:7-9.
The Bishop of Peterborough sensed the seriousness of the situation and set it before his hearers in his presidential address at the Church Congress. He was dealing with the Labour situation in the following utterances:
It is not the kingdom of God that has failed, but men and women who, while professing allegiance to its ideals, never believed that they were practical. With the almost limitless destructiveness of aerial warfare, the choice before us now lies between hell and Utopia. The alternative to destruction, annihilation, desolation, is a new spirit in international relationships, and the adoption of the ideals of the kingdom of God. . . . The workers must have a real share in management, and the employers a real guarantee of whole-hearted co-operation. The curse of the age is that its principles are material and its outlook selfish.
This clerical leader sees one of two things for the near future—either a Utopia, in which men and women forget and abandon materialism and selfishness, or a complete dislocation of all the functions of civilisation; and this latter condition he terms “hell.”
What warrant have we for building our hopes upon any such expectation as that men and women, in this materialistic and selfish and covetous age, will be suddenly transformed into paragons of self-sacrifice, spirituality, and benevolence? The whole trend of the age is in the other direction. Those who have wealth are hoarding their holdings with hearts that are ever more greedy and hands that are more and more grasping. We may as well expect to see the mighty glaciers of the Alps, the Andes, and the Rockies forcing their ponderous weights of flowing ice up again to the pinnacles of the hills whence they descended as to expect to see the tremendous tidal wave of selfishness and materialism and covetousness fall back spent into the bosom of a converted humanity. It will never be. The condition which the Bishop of Peterborough sees, and acknowledges, points its finger also to the scripture which said it was to be. This is the scripture:—
This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. 2 Tim. 3:1-4.
This, the prophet declares, was to be the characteristic of “the last days.” It is a perfect picture of our day, and the bishop recognises it. While he recognises the condition, he is looking and hoping for a remedy which will guarantee a complete change. The prophet predicts the condition, and says it portends “the last days.” That is the difference between God’s Word and man’s plans. The bishop declares:—
The curse of the age is that its principles are material and its outlook selfish.
What will alter it? The popular Church admits that it has lost its grip on the multitude. Will some organisation apart from the Church step in now and do the Church’s work, bringing the world to the feet of Christ? It is nowhere so written in the purpose of the Almighty. The Word warns us that we are in the last days. Surely it is incumbent upon every soul to set his house in order before the great Judge decrees “It is finished.”
