Christ Is Coming.—He has said so in his word. He has told us that there would be signs of his coming. Line after line of prophecy has he given in his word, and the very last predictions are in process of fulfillment. He told us that there would be signs of his coming in the physical, social, political, and religious worlds, and they are all before us. The creation groans for her coming King. Old earth quakes under the burden of the curse. Wild storms sweep over her surface and pestilence follows plague. In the social world the long-talked-of brotherhood of man is as far distant as ever. The rich are growing richer; the poor are growing poorer; and the gulf which separates them grows ever broader. Thousands of schemes are proposed and thousands are rejected by everyone but their projectors. Oftentimes the poor are their own worst enemies in the combinations they form, and the intemperate and prodigal lives they live. On the other hand, with thousands of sufferers for the necessities of life under the very shadow of the mansion of the rich, the Dives of the nineteenth century piles up his colossal fortunes into the hundreds of millions. It cannot go on much longer. In the political world thrones are trembling in the balance, governments slumber on hidden mines of dynamite, nations are living in hourly expectation of great calamities, and their hearts are failing them for fear of those things coming on the earth. Socialism, Nihilism, and Anarchism hold the nations in dread, and uneasy rest the heads of195rulers of republics as well as those of kingdoms. The religious world is no better. The professed church has broken truce with God, that she may unite with the world. The great historic religions are uniting with apostate Christianity against Christ and his truth. The beast of the deadly wound is reviving, his image increases in distinctness, and God's great message of warning is sounding out to the world to turn from the worship of the beast and his image, to the worship of God and obedience to his law. All these things and many more tell us—what?—That Christ the King is coming. Coming, Lord of earth and heaven!
King! to whom all power is given,
Judge! at whose all-searching bar
All must stand just what they are.
Reader, are you ready?