The New York herald., 1870-01-23
4 Bswlldsrsd Lendsa 'sOid Fsgy" ON tho
ssProphetic Omce Of the Now York Herald"


ssProphetlc Omce Of the Now York Herald"
We have reserved for our readers to this
Sunday morning somewhat amusing, though
doleful, review from bewildered "old fogy'
Of the London Spectator, Of two Of our recent
editorial Sunday discourses-the one on the
'sNew Heaven and the New Earth" and "the
New Jerusalem" and the other on King Davids
''handful OF corn in the earth upon the top Of
the mountains" and st. John the Divine's
vision Of the claiming and locking up in the
bottomless pit of ''that old serpent which is
the Devil and Satan" for thousand years.
Our application Of the discoveries and instru-
mcntalities Of modern science as the agents
destined to bring about the fulflment Of these
sublime prophecies is confessedly beyond the
comprehension Of our sorely perplexed London
contemporary. He is Of the mind Of the
Church inqnsitors who compelled Calico to
recant the heresy that the world moved; ''but
1t does move, for all that" He cannot under
stand how the fixed facts of science are to be
reconciled with the teachings OF the Old or
the New Testament. He naturally enough
recoils from the thought that the city OF New
York, redeemed and regenerated, materially
and morally made clean, is to be the New Jeru-
salem of the new age that Is already dawning.
upon q new earth that modern science, in its
applications to the good of mankind, is des-
tined to effect fusion Of all the nations, races
and tribes of the earth-lndans, Chinese
negroes and all-in the common brotherhood
of one mighty confederation of genuine law
and order, ''liberty, equality and frater-
nity;" that the press, the railway, the
steamship and the telegraph are to do
this grand and glorious work that after the
lapse of nearly thirty centuries the outgrowth
from King David's handful of corn is beginning
10 ''shake like Lebanon" with the top dress
ing of General Grant, in the fourteenth and
fifteenth amendments of the constitution Of the
United States; that the lightning telegraph is
to annihilate not only space, but the sea, and
that the electric wire is the chain which
is to bind the Devil for at least thousand
years
All this is rank heresy and ''the abomina-
ton of desolation" to our London old school
philosopher. "Yet, after all" he confesses,
''this sort of stuff" has something in it; that at
the worst it is only "a popular caricature of
tendency deeply rooted not only in New York
ers but in English women" that 1--WE are
always hearing this nonsense In one form or
another;" that even Dickens talks it, but with
some reticence.and dexterity while with the
New YORK HERALD it is ''stark Manhattan
ISM" that, in Short the materialistic tenden-
ces of the day are towards "a form of modern
idolatry of the lowest type, which seems more
and more likely to undermine Christianity
altogether
This admission gives us the victory. Our
London philosopher, still cropping as he is
among the Church dogmas of the Dark Ages,
has glimmering of the ''new heaven and the
new earth" in the new age and the new dis
pensation that are even now breaking upon us
through overland wires and ocean cables and
a free press and free thought, fusing the differ
ent races and nations of mankind into a COM
mon brotherhood. The Church of Rome in the
Ecumenical Council has also glimmering of
this new dispensation, and is debating the
feasibility of repeating ''the Pope's bull against
the comet;" the Church of England is shaking
through all its fbres in its vain and aimless
conflict with the progressive spirit of the age;
and SO it is with all the Churches Of the United
States, from the old mother Hebrew faith to its
latest Protestant bantling.
1t is the ''irrepressible conflict" between
old ideas of Imagination and the stubborn facts
and resistless material and moral forces Of
modern science. Our London philosopher,
despairing of reconciling these new moral
forces with the dogmas Of past age, regards
with ill-concealed amazement and horror the
logical and consistent facts upon which we
contend that the developments and instru-
mentalities Of science are but the fulflment of
the Scriptures looking to ''the new heaven and
the new earth" therein foreshadowed. But the
clearer-sighted Father Hyacinthe is inspired
with the sublime prospect which opens before
him of science and revelation harmonized in
the coming universal faith; and SO are we.
Inspired with the same glorious vision of the
unity of the nations through the press and the
telegraph-of that new age when there shall
be no more wars, fortresses, fleets or armies
equipped for slaughter, no more famines or
desolating plaques, no more communities of
the rich getting richer and the poor poorer, no
more prejudices of race or caste, or persecu-
tions for opinions sake-we still hold to the
dea that from its geographical and command
ing position New York is to be the New Jeru-
salem Of the prophet Of Patmos. AAah!
nadshdJldh! God be praised!
HENRI ROCHEFORT's SENTENCE. From q
cable despatch, which we publish this morning,