Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1872-09-18
That Last Great Day.

One leading feature Of the great day Of
reckoning--the one, perhaps, more than any
other pressed upon our regard in Holy Writ
shall be its suddenness, its unexpectedness,
the worlds unpreparedness for il. IL is to
come as a thief in the night. 1t is to take
the world by surprise. One cannot help oft
en- iancying to what a sharp, abrupt, and aw-
ful close the busy movements Of the busy
world shall then be brought. The day before
its last shall see them all going on as usual.
Over one half the globe its inhabitants shall
be eating and drinking, buying and selling.
marrying and giving in marriage the mer-
chant in the market.pace calculating his
gains the scholar at bis desk pouring over
the ancient page; the reapers in the field ply
ing their harvest task. And there in the
quiet churchyard group shall have gathered
round the last grave, the coffin shall have
been lowered down into it, and the grave
digger have grasped the shovel to cover up
the dead Over the other half Of the globe
its inhabitants shall have laid themselves
down to rest and the merchant shall be
dreaming there of the gains that to-morrow's s
sales are to realize; and the politician shall
be dreaming Of the measures, that tomorrow,
in the senate-house, he is to propose, Of the
oration that tomorrow he is to deliver aud
bright visions of many happy days to come
shall be haunting many youthful slumber-
er's fancy aud the ballroom and the ban
quet room shall have hung out their glitter
ing lights, and spread their inviting tables,
and the smile, and the dance, the ringing
laugh, and the jovial song, shall all be there
just then, without herald sent, or note of
warning given, the Son of man shall descend
from heaven with shout, with the voice Of
the archangel, and the trump Of God. That
trumpet call Of heaven shall span at once the
globe, and be heard the same moment at either
pole. AT its summons the million sleepers of
the earth shall all rise up from their last re-
pose, their dreamings of earthly to-morrows
all cut short. A shivering terror, like that
which filled Belshazzar's hall, shall run
through the ballroom and the banquet-room,
and the jest half uttered, the song half sung,
they shall stare upon one another there in
pale alright. In the busy market-place the
buyer shall forget the price he ofiered-the
seller the price he asked. At his desk the
pen shall drop from the writer's hand. The
reapers shall fling the gathered sheaves from
their hands. And in that quiet churchyard
that group around the grave shall be con-
vulsed with wonder, as the coffin bursts and
the dead man springs to life and stands up by
their side.
For that trumpet call of heaven shall do
more than waken all the sleeping and arrest
all the living inhabitants of the globe. 1t
shall GO where sound never went before-it
shall do what sound never did. 1t shall
pierce the stony monument; it shall penetrate
the grassy mound--far down through many
fathom of the ebbing waters shall it make its
wsE---over the deep bed Of ocean shall il, roll
--and the sea shall give up at once the dead
that are in it, and the earth the dead that are
there. And all the dead, small and great,
shall arise. And in moment, in the twink
ling of an eye, by the forthgoing Of one NAT of
the Omnpotent over all the vast congrega-
tion of the living with which that still vaster
congregation of the dead is to mingle--over
all the bodies Of the living change shall pass
that shall make them like to those new bod
les Of the raised. And all shall be caught
up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in
the air, temporarily uplifted above those fires
by which the world that now is, and all these
its present works are to be burnt up. And
the vast company as it rises from the earth
shall meet another, perhaps vaster company
descending from the skies. For he who shall
that day come in the clouds of heaven with
power and great glory, shall come with all
his holy angels with him and there too shall
be those angels that lost their first estate, and
who had been reserved in everlasting chains
under darkness unto the judgement of the
great day; heaven, earth, hell--coming thus
for once together---tbat out of that interven-
ing earth, heaven and hell might gather all
that each could claim as its own, and then
with a contrast heightened by that one meet
ing part for ever!-Dr. Hanna, ia Sunday
Magazine.