The Second Advent by J. C. Ryle

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jul 22, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 28.

The Second Advent

By J. C. Ryle

Did you ever hear the sound of the trumpets which are blown before the judges as they come into a city to open the assizes? Did you ever reflect how different are the feelings which those trumpets awaken in the minds of different men? The innocent man, who has no cause to be tried, hears them unmoved. They proclaim no terrors to him. He listens and looks on quietly, and is not afraid. But often there is some poor wretch waiting his trial, in a silent cell, to whom those trumpets are a knell of despair. They tell him that the day of trial is at hand. Yet a little time, and he will stand at the bar of justice, and hear witness after witness telling the story of his misdeeds. Yet a little time and all will be over,—the trial, the verdict, the sentence; and there will remain nothing for him but punishment and disgrace. No wonder the prisoner’s heart beats when he hears the trumpet’s sound! So shall the sound be of the archangel’s trump.—J. C. Ryle.