The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-08-01

and March p. 1874 the end OF all things
would come, and Christ would appear in
person to judge the world. Multitudes
fiocked to herr him wherever he went.
Orthodox churches were thrown open to
him. and many ministers became adj
vocates of his doctrine. He illus
trated his lectures with charts,
diagrams and symbols which many
persons thought convincing. The year
1s44 passed without Mllers prophecy being
verified, but he explained where he had
made mistake in failing to consider the
difference between Roman and Jewish time
in the prophecies. Then he fixed Oct. "a to
25, 1874 as the time when the world would
come to an end Thousands of persons in
all parts of the country believed him, and
those who did not were somewhat nervous.
At the appointed time his believers gathered
in some places in great numbers. It is said
that some provided themselves with ascen-
sion robes. Even after this failure Miler's
followers did not wholly desert him, and
they finally adopted the name Adventist"
Traces of the doctrine, or of the old Mil
lenarian doctrine, still exist in the orthodox
churches, and now and then a Presbyterian
or Methodist preacher promugates it in a
mild form-that is. the doctrine of the mil
lennium and the second coming of Christ.
A Presbyterian clergyman of this city, DR..
McClungs used to preach it with intense
earnestness. He preached it in the old First
Presbyterian Church, and many old citizens
we'll remember his eloquent expositions of
the prophecies and his fiery predictions of
the coming of Christ. From here he went
to a Northwestern State, and afterwards
became insane.
The world still stands, or still rolls on,
and doubtless will for an indefinite period.
Nevertheless, it will have an end. Other
planets have become extinct, and no doubt
this one will some time. Science cannot
explain how the world will come to an end
any more than prophecy can tell when, but
it can make interesting conjectures. The
earth might be consumed by internal fires,
though they are pretty safely confined. 1t
might be rent asunder by d tremendous
earthquake, though that is very improbable.
1t might become uninhabitabie and gradu-
ally become a mass of ice through some
change in it's axis. If the law of gravita-
ton were suspended, together with the mu
tual action of the planets on one another,
it might start off at a tangent into space
and dash itself to pieces against some other
body or tire itself out and drop into the
bottomless abyss of space. The latest the
DRY on the subject is advanced in an adj
dress recently delivered before the Royal
Bavarian Academy of Sciences by Prof.
Seeliger, a scientist of repute. He holds
that the motion OF the earth in it's revolu-
ton around the sun is being constantly re-
tarded by friction, and that while this
process is enthusiastically slow the retarda-
ton will eventually become so great that
the earth will gravitate to the sun and be-
come merged in it. Science can assign rea-
sonable ground for this theory. Everybody
knows that a cannon ball propelled with
the greatest force is. to some extent, i'm
peded and retarded by the air. Interplan-
etary space is not filled with air, but it
is filled with ether, a much less substantial
material than air, but still substance
which, in the course of ages, may offer ma
terial resistance to the revolution of the
earth. Again, it is known that interplan-
etary space is filed with what astronomers
call cosmic dust, small bodies flying hither
and thither, sometimes colliding with one
another and sometimes with this or that
planet. When they become visible to in
habitants of the earth they are called
shooting stars or meteors. Millions Of these
small bodies daily lombard the earth, or
its atmosphere, and, while the effect of
each collision is infinitesimal, in the course
of millions of years it will be felt. In this
way Prof. Seeliger believes that the VeIoc-
ity of the earth will ultimately be so re-
tarded that it will gradually approach the
sun in spiral orbit, growing smaller and
smaller, but finally it will be swallowed up
by the sun. Perhaps this theory is correct,
but it will not be verified very soon.
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