The St. Johns herald., 1891-06-18
The End of the World.

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 orite theme with large class of re
 ligious teachers, and has been SC from time immemorial. But not alone have prophecies and specula
 tions on this startling subject been confined to religionists. Every race of people in every age has had it's lurid predictions by seers and ora cles of the end of the world. There are now living many persons who remember the excitement and alarm which was produced nearly 90 years ago by the preachings of William Miller, of New York, who declared that the end of all flesh was near. and who set the day of final con- summation for date in October, 1844. Miller published pamphlet entitled The Midnight Cry," em- bellished with terrifying pictures of the monstrous beasts which are set forth in the apocalyptic books of the Bible. Since the days of Miller have come many other interpreters or prophecy. who, nothing daunted by the failure of all the predictions that had gone before them, did not hesitate to appoint dates for the consummation of the end of the world. The last of these Is Prof. Totten, of Yale College. who has re- gently laid before the public his ex- planation of the ancient prophecies of Daniel and in the Apocalypse of St. John. In both those books are set forth in detail predictions of events which are to occur, and his toric panorama of numerous mo- mentous happenings are unfolded to the view. For each set of events a period of beginning and a time of duration are set, and at the con- clusion of the several series of hap penings the final consummation is to come. The prophet Daniel, while the Jews were in captivity in Baby lon, received revelations which are claimed to give accounts of what was to happen down to the end of the world, the starting point being the command by Cyrus for the re- building of the temple at Jerusalem. There are several periods which in- tervene between that event and the final consummation. Among these are seventy weeks supposed to end with the crucifixion of Christ and the subsequent destruction of Jeru- salem by the Romans. Then there are periods of 1,260 days, l,290 days, 2,300 days and "a time, times and a half time" which are also subdivisions of the great duration preceding the end. Very much the same periods are also specified in the Book of Revelation and stu dents of prophecy for a thousand years have been endeavoring to har- monize these two sets of data and to explain just what is meant by the expression "days" and "times" used by the sacred writers and to identify the principal events that are to mark the close of epochs. The books that have been written on these subjects would fill house, and the various and conflicting con clusions that have been worked out are almost past computation. The result is that every date heretofore fixed for the end of the world has disappointed all who trusted in it and our old planet, scared and scanned with the effects of innum- erable physical convulsions and stained with the crimes of its in- habitants through all the hoary cen turies of its history, is still rolling around on it's path through the heavens, its people planting, and reaping, and carrying on their af- fairs as if no terrible prediction had ever been made.-New Orleans Pic Ryune.
 A report is current to the effect