St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1892-12-05
An Interesting Sermon From
the Standpoint Of Chris
tian Science
Delivered at Grand Forks
Yesterday by Eloquent
Miss Sutton.
The Second Coming OF Christ
as the Scientists Take
Note OF 1t.
Difference Between the Mate
rial and the Spiritual
View Of It.

LOOkluR LOT ana naSteDlDR unto the COM
ing OF the day of God, wherein the heavens
being on fire shall be dissolved, and the ele
ments shall melt with feryent heat. Never
theless, we, according to His promise, look
Ior new heavens and new earth wherein
dWelleth righteousness. I'll. Peter iii. II, IL.
And then shall they see the Son of Man
coming in cloud with power and great
glory."-Luke 21-27.
If we take these Scriptural passages
in their literal meaning. they picture to
the mind a scene which causes the
stouteSt heart to quail. And thousands
upon thousands of hearts have quailed
at this picture, for, as we know, the
literal or material meaning is almost
universally taught in Christianity.
When a child this was the QUE thing
above all others that made me un-
happy. 1.-The day Of the Lord
shall come like thief in the night. :"
To my childish mind this was one of
The crueleSt things about it. To go to
rest on a still, cool summer night, when
everything out of doors wore look of
serenity, calculated to lull man into the
belief of safety and the unconscious
ness of sleep, to be rudely awakened by
the thunder notes of the ''great trum-
pet"
Always lover of nature, [ have lain
and looked out upon moonlIt night of
beauty which would have made me
happy but for the thought that perhaps
this is the night" when we shall all be
awakened to come to Judgment.
unused much upon the expected scene,
as CLEANED it from the Bible and i'm
aginative Sabbath school teachers; the
sound of the trumpet throughout the
whole earth, awakening the guilty and
the guiltieSs, the saved and the UNI
saved: the Lord Jesus Christ coming
out OF heaven upon cloud i'll a great
light GLORY, and attended by hosts of
angels: all the people of the earth rush
ing out into the night, some from their
beds, Others from weary vgils beside sick
beds. and many starting forth from the
haunts of crime, where they were
spending sleepless nights of revelry;
saw the faces of Christians. excited, yet
tremulous with Joy: the faces of the
unSaved, horrible to behold, so diShg
ured were they With awful amaZement.
fear and despair! / saw Jesus gather
all together in one vast concourSe, and,
out of the great record, read every
thought and deed of each person; then
followed the separating OF the wicked
from the just, the goats from the sheep.
the just taken up into heaven and the
wicked consigned
To Everlasting Torture.
l remember my thoughts did not
dwell much upon the Joy of the re-
deemed, but rather upon the misery of
tie lost. l felt somewhat as L once did
when feared beloved sister would
miss heaven. | could not willingly give
her over to heavens opposite, as taught
III orthodoxy, and in all agony prayed
God to punish me and save her in my
stead. | saw the wicked falling upon
their knees and pleading God
to give them one more hour,
one minute to repent. and l
| heard them pleading for others. not for
themselves, but others: "Punish me,
but oh, spare my wife, my children, my
old mother" And | saw Him who
the Scriptures declare lis not willing
that any should perish, but that all
should come to repentance" turn away
with Indifference to welcome the saved
into heaven. How my heart ached for
them as / witnessed las though it had
been reaD their awful punishment and
remorse!
This one misinterpretation of Script
ural figurative language has turned
God into stone. ''The fearful looking
unto judgment" often pursued me for
weeks, recurring each night to make
me miserable. but vanishing with the
| bright light of each morning. I'ye often
| sprung up with the glad thought I'VE
are all here yet" That was love, but
| the expected judgment was expressive
| of hatred, cruelty and revenge.
To believe that the material man
| Jesus will come again in material
cloud. to be beheld by human eyes. is a
human Interpretation of a spiritual
event. If Jesus were in such form and
condition as to be seen by mortal eyes,
we would see Him now and always, as
He said, Il am with you always" He
is here now just as truly as He ever will
be; but He is wholly spiritual, and His
second coming will be realization of
His presence coming to our conscious
ness. His human body He did not take
to heaven. 1t was an illusion apparent
only to human sense, as all matter is.
He simply vanquished the illusion at
the Ascension. Did He not say flesh
and blood could not enter the kingdom
of heaven?
Another inconsistency in the false be-
lietS concerning the second coming is
the thought of it taking place in the
material night. That would be impos-
sible, as it is to come to the whole
world. and but One-half is night at one
time. This alone should teach us
not to accept the literal mean
ing. The fearful thought that
the whole earth shall be burned
with material fire vanishes when we
reason that fire would not destroy the
elements of the earth. Burn up hay
stack, and Is the substance (sO-called)
destroyed? No, it has but changed to a
more rarefled form of ashes. smoke and
vapor, and these will be absorbed by
the earth and spring up in some other
form. Hence the material burning of
the whole earth would not destroy it, to
give place to the new heavens and the
new earth; but if tue apparent laws of
material nature were real and God
made, the material earth would be re-
shaped in some form or forms, since
Gods laws are everlasting.
The Material Universe