The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1902-03-27
Oft Predicted Millennium Is Yet
Far Off, Thinks William,
WOULD-BE PROPHETS WHO FAILED
Conversion of the World to Christ Is
Much Too Slow and Better Prog
ress Will Have to Be Made
BY Missionaries.

lection it has bobbed up three or four
times and excited good people all over
the country, for good people wish it
to come, and live in expectation. l
remember when William Miller, of
Massachusetts, had all New England
excited, for he was very learned man
and sincere Christian, and believed
all that he professed. For ten years
he exhorted the people to be ready for
the coming of Christ in 1843, and even
fixed the day when they would see
Him descending from heaven in mag
nificent glory and escorted by Moses
and Elijah and retinue of angels He
had over $4,000 devoted converts and
the night before the promised day
they arrayed themselves in white raj
ment and sang and shouted and prayed
until morning and then climbed the
high hills and the tree tops and the
spires of the churches to meet Him as
He neared the earth. But He didn't
come, and it nearly broke their hearts,
and they like to have persisted to
death, for they had given away all
their earthly possessions.
Next came DR.. John Cummings, a
very learned minister of London, who
wrote a book on it and fixed the mil
lennial year at 1863. We were fighting
over here about that time and the mil
lennium had to be postponed. The mil
lennium means the reign OF Christ
upon the earth for a thousand years,
when everybody will be good and there
shall be no more death nor pain nor
sorrow, and there has not been a cen
fury since the cricifxion that. the re-
llgious people have not been looking
for His coming. The Christians got
their belief from the prophecies of
Daniel and from st. John and St. Pc
ter and latel On from Irenacus and
Justin Martyr, and they delighted
themselves with dreams of glory that
was near at hand. Some of them de-
clared there would be no more winters,
no more nights and everlasting wells
would run with honey and milk and
wine. Jerusalem would be rebuilt and
the fruits of the earth would be CO.
1ossal and never dying. One notable
writer said that every grape vine
would have 10000 branches and every
branch 10000 shoots and every shoot
10000 punches and every bunch 10000
grapes and every grape would make
25 gallons of wine. Good gracious
how thirsty that fellow must have
been. But the millennium didn't come,
and by and by Origin, very wise and
good man came along in the third cen
fury and declared that there would
no such grapes, but that Christ's COM
ing would be altogether spiritual. Still
His coming kept on being predicted
and when the reformation of Luther
and Calvin came about they said that
the pope was the anti-Christ and the
millennium was near at hand. Next
came Oliver Cromwell, who excited
his followers with a prediction of the
millennium-and so it goes on and on
and now it is about time for another.
Just as soon as we have done killing
off the Fillipinos and England has
killed off all the Beers.
Well, now all these nominations
about the millennium were provoked
by what 1 have been reading about
the recent discoveries of oil all over
the country. One thing brings on an
other, and if the coming Of Christ is
near at hand and His Reign is to be
spiritual one for a thousand years, and
there is to be no winter or night or
sickness or pain or sorrow, we won't
need all this OIL neither for fuel or
light. And so l don't believe the millen-
mum is very near. If all the people
are to be converted and become good
it will be a long time off, for it is a
slow process, and all the coal and oil
in the bowels of the erath will be
needed 1t wasn't put there for moth
ing. Missionary work is going on
more rapidly than ever before, but it
is like drop in bucket of water.
We have got 10000 missionaries in
heather lands and they are aided by
$4,000 native preachers and teachers,
but these 100000 will have to convert
an average for each of ten year to
make a million, and there are over
thousand million, and there are over a
more coming on. But they do not con-
vert half a million year for the last
report gives only 100000 all told.
Last year we spent $2OOOOO 900 on them
and have now over 100000 children
going to Christian schools and have
$4,000 churches, and over 1000 sec
ondary schools besides medical col
1eges and training schools and hospi-
tails and asylums for orphans and the
blind and the insane and the lepers
They have got almost everything that
We have got and now have protection
in Constantinople and Pekin and
Beirut and other great heather cen
tiers. The work they have done in the
last ten years is amazing and the alb
duction of Miss Stone has increased