The morning call., 1890-04-06
THE END OF THE WORLD.

The cranks who predict that on Monday
week the world, or at any rate that portion
thereof which lies on the Pacific Coast of
California, will be destroyed by an earth
quake and tidal wave are not as original
as they fancy. They are mere cOpyists.
Their story has been threadbare for thou
sand years or more.
A propensity to believe in the fiuiteness
of all things human and temporal has been
common from the earliest dawn of Chris
tianity. When the pagan churches finally
went down before the advance of the true
religion many of the best men of the day
believed that the world would last thou
sand years and no more. They based their
estimate partly on the language used in the
twentieth Revelations and partly on other
passages of the Bible. Paul, in his second
epistle to the ThesSalonians, took pains to
put the churches on their guard against the
hefesY that the day of Christ was at hand
but the words of the Revelations seemed 80
clear, the limit of one thousand years was
so frequently repeated, that it was regarded
as evidence of inhdelity to entertain doubts
on the subject. Accordingly, as the elev-
enth century drew to close men of piety
put their houses in order, freQuented the
churches. prepared for the end and eX-
horted their families to stand ready for the
day when the sea should give up her dead,
and death and hell should be cast into the
lake of fire. The Emperor Otto, who shared
the popular belief. visited the tomb of Char
lemagne and proposed to stand thereon
when the book of life was opened. Our
direct ancestors. the English, were either
too ignorant or too hard-headed to realize
their danger; they had, indeed, enough to
occupy their minds at the time in repelling
Danish and Norman invasions, and at the
easy-going court of Robert the Debonair in
France nobody troubled himself about the
end of the world. But the peasantry
throughout Europe were quite prepared for
the catastrophe, and were probably sur
prised when they got up in the morning and
found everything going on as usual They
We're really disappointed when the year
1901 began and there was no sign of the
heavens rolling up as a scroll.
From that day to the present time alarms
concerning the end of the world have been
periodical. BY twisting passages Of the
Bible from their normal meaning eraDks
have constantly figured that the end of
things created must come in this or that
year. The Anabaptists were clear that
things could not last long, and similar no.
ton peryaded the minds Of many Of the
German and Swiss reformers, who were
imbued with apoealyptie mysticism. The
latest outburst OF millenarianism was due
to the pTeachings of one Miller, a fanatic
who louriShed fifty or sixty years ago in
New York. He knew that the world was
10 end in 1913, and he converted to his
views some fifty thousand people. so that,
as the fatal year approached, some of them
gave away their property and did not sue
coed in getting 1t back when 1S44 came in
with every indication of vigorous life.
That the world, as at present constituted,
is to come to an end some day is generally
believed by astronomers. and at any rate
cannot be disproved. The law of the uni
verse is constant evolution. First the
nebulR, without form and void, and with
all substances in a state OF gaseous fusion;
then the gradual cooling and solidifcation
and the formation of globe with a fixed
orbit; then the development of this globe
into planet suitable for the occupation of
man; and then. perhaps, the extinction of
that planet by the withdrawal of heat and
light, water and atmosphere aud the sub
stitution for it of a dead world, revolving in
gloom and silence through space like the
moon. But the extinction of world pre-
supposes so many and such overwhelming
catastrOphes that the mind can hardly
grasp its possibility. Is the sun losing its
heat? Are the waters of the earth being
gradually drained of into the oceans? If
yes, men Of science can figure within few
millions of years or so when the solar heat
will be insufficient TO sustain life and the
food supply of the world will be cut off
from the conversion of arabic lands into
deserts. But to prefgure such a change the
mind must extend its vision over such
prodigious period of time that the effort
will resemble an attempt to reckon mentally
the space which separates the world from
Sirius. 1t cannot be done. The end of
the world MAY come. But if it does the
dread hour is so distant or uncertain that it
need cause NO present tremor, aud the con-
temptation of the subject can only serve TO
feed morbid fancy.