THE EARTH AND THE COMET.
By Editor
“When will wonders cease? Certainly, not while the appetite for them is so great. So long as men are led by curiosity and wonder to crave marvels, there will be enough to supply them. Strange terrors will haunt their imaginations. They will see sights in the heavens, and hear sounds in the air, foreboding gloom and disaster. Storms and tempests will betoken troubles and revolutions; and fiery comets, as they flame through the sky,
‘From their horrid hair
Will shake pestilence and war.’
“On such direful prognostics, apprehensions have often been felt that the world was coming to an end. A few years ago Father Miller traversed the country, rehearsing the prophecies, with figures and calculations, by which he fixed the day for the general conflagration. In mute terror his disciples, like an affrighted flock of sheep, awaited the day of doom. At length it came. The sun rose as usual; the hours wore on; at length, the twilight stole over the still and peaceful earth, and all was calm in the face of nature. The world did not explode, but Father Miller did. Poor man! he soon sank into obscurity and was scarcely heard of more.” The above stray paragraph has fallen under our notice. As we consider that the readers of some paper are publicly treated to such stuff as that, we are led to some reflections. Whenever we see a writer passing over the “storms,” “tempests,” “troubles and revolutions” which are now confessedly more than ever beginning to convulse the world, with slurs and flippant sneers, and endeavoring to allay any serious reflections that might arise in any mind concerning them, we feel like asking a few questions. We would like to ask the writer of the above if he ever read Matt. xxiv, or Mark xiii, or Luke xxi? What does the Saviour mean when he speaks of signs in the sun, moon and stars, and upon the earth distress of nations with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring? and what would he have us understand by it, when he holds these out as signs by which we may know that we are approaching that time when we shall “see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory?” Could we admit for the sake of argument that we are not now upon the eve of that event, we would ask if these signs will not take place according to the Saviour’s prediction, whenever the end is right upon us? and will there not be found then multitudes who will be ready to make a mock of serious things, and laugh at the precursors of the great day, as resulting from the haunted imaginations of the superstitious and marvelous? Should we not, then, when we see events transpiring before us, bearing precisely the character of those pointed out by the Saviour, which he told us should be signs of the coming One,—should we not pause in view of them, and ask ourselves if we may not already have reached the time when “the great day of the Lord is near and hasteth greatly?” The Saviour has positively assured us that these things should take place as signs of his coming, and that when they begin to come to pass, we should look up and lift up our heads, for our redemption was drawing nigh. It is evident then that he who penned the quotation at the head of this article was either grossly ignorant of the declarations of the Bible, or he intended to cast a slur upon the sacred page. We refer not now to the apprehensions entertained by a few (of the unbelieving however) in regard to the comet, which we protested against from the first, but of the signs in general of which he speaks. Such signs shall precede the end of the world, on the authority of our Saviour’s own words. Such signs are now, and have of late years been, taking place; and he who would meet them with braggadocio and ridicule, is fitly described by Solomon in Prov. xiv, 16. So Father Miller, it seems, exploded. So the world think; and so probably thought the old Pharisees concerning Christ after his lifeless body had been deposited in the tomb. No doubt they then consoled themselves with the thought that the “new sect,” would soon be scattered to the four winds, and “Jesus of Nazareth” sink into obscurity and be scarcely heard of more. But as Christ told the daughters of Jerusalem who lamented him, not to weep for him, but for themselves and their children, so would we remind this writer that he may retain the pseudo-sympathy which he manifests for the “poor man.” Neither Father Miller nor his cause has any need of it. Let him rather bestow it upon himself and his children. For there is a time coming in which an “explosion” will take place, when he will need sympathy;—a time when the hopes of all scoffers will be exploded, and their fairest prospect blighted, and their delusive dreams expelled, and the stupefying fumes of unbelief and all forms of irreligion, in which their moral sensibilities have been steeped, cleared away forever, and they awakened to the reality of finding themselves vainly calling upon the rocks and mountains to hide them from the presence of a wrathful Lamb. “Millerism” is not exploded. If Peter could declare himself begotten again to a lively hope by the resurrection of the Saviour, so can we, by the new developments of truth since our disappointment in 1844, by which the whys and wherefores of that disappointment are clearly given. The Advent movement is not yet finished. Prophecy is still hastening to its fulfillment. This the world might see and understand if they would; but they will not. They think that every vision faileth; and the unbeliever hardens his heart, and the scoffer grows bold in wickedness, and both are lulled more deeply into the delusive dream of peace and safety, and know not that sudden destruction like a winged messenger from the Almighty is upon their track. It is not in “mute terror like an affrighted flock of sheep,” according to the above tissue of insult and falsehood, that the followers of the Lord wait for his coming. Those who know anything about it, know that they were not altogether “mute” in 1844, and they know that there were many hearts that swelled with emotions of joy at the thought of entering the mansions of their Father’s house. The fright, the terror, the lamentation and woe, are reserved for the wicked, when they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory; but the righteous will then be enabled to look up, and, with joy beaming upon their countenances, exclaim, “Lo, this is our God! we have waited for him, and he will save us.”