The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1875-02-17
THE END or THE WORLD.

| If the body's death seems to teach the les
son that modesty is becoming to the scientific
| speculator what shall we say MS to the pros
| poets OF that material frame which is beyond
ourselves--the general orderly frame Of the
universe as we see it around us People
would suppose, from the way in which you
hear men talk, that there was not the slight
est chance of any great organic change ever
coming across the outward world in which
we live. No doubt God works by fixed laws.
No doubt the world goes on morning and
evening, and summer and winter; but what
reason have you to suppose that it will SO so
on to infinty? Have no great catastrophes
befallcn the world before now? Does not
physical science itself speak of these catas-
trophies? What is there to prevent other
catastrophes, produced by the operation Of
the laws of which at present we are very ig-
norant, coming athwart the globe on which
we live, and a complete change taking place
in the relations in which things even in the
outward world stand at present, so that in
the scriptural sense of the word there may be
an end to the world, as there is certainly to
be an end Of our earthly life? To be sure,
things have gone on long time in the same
way, but is that any proof that's they are
to go Oh in the same way for ever? You
arise morning after morning in good health
and strength, and seem to say to yourself for
time that this will last Cor ever but one
morning something happens, you cannot ex-
plain what; but something has happened
that lays you on a bed of sickness, and in two
days sends you off to your grave q corpse.
Win the experience of the reality of the way
in which everything has gone on since you
were Young, till you have attained maturity,
save you from that great mischance? Again,
men for centuries had ranged over the
mountains in Campagna they thought that
all would go on there, herds and focks feed
ing and vineyards growing as they had done
for centuries and suddenly, there was
strange sound heard, and volcano burst
forth, and the great philosopher of the age
came to look at it, and lost his life while he
was looking. But neither he nor any of the
men who had speculated with him ever ex-
pected that these great cities were to be
lures to become for u time an arid wilderness.
do not say such instances explain or tell us
distinctly that such catastrophes will befal
the whole globe but at all events, l think
they ought to make us modest, seeing that
the wisest know SO very small q portion of
the laws that regulate God S creation. Surely
we may not dogmatically assume that such
catastrophas a.e buyvnd the range Of peaeitic
or probable events. 1t is true, say. things
have gone on for a long time, and men say,
"Where is the promise of His coming, for all
things continue as they were from the begin
ming of the world?" But still with Him,
with whom one day is as a thousand years.
and a thousand years as one day, there may
be changes maturing which no philosopher of
the present or of any previous age has ever
dreamed of, which will bring this great ca
tastrophe to the globe, which will answer, on
the whole outward creation, to something as
great as is our passage from life to death, and
what is beyond it. | do not think there is
anything fanciful in such an expectation. |
believe that man, of that modest mind which.
is the characteristic of true science, will hest
tate before he pronounces with any assurance
that such change may not como over the
world as has been distinctly predicted in the
Scriptures. Tat, Archbishop of Caater-
b3lru