The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1919-06-06
ANOTHER MILLENNIUM

period of thousand years during
which the saints will reign on earth.
In Cromwell's time the Fifth Mon
archy men believed that the millennial
program started with the overthrow of
the royal family; and the long-nosed
saints of Puritanism proceeded forth
with to take possession of the earth
and the fullnes thereof.
Every time somebody conquers a
Beast, millennium breaks out some
where. According to the prophecies,
whenever "the Beast" is conquered
there just has to be a millennium. That
poor King Charles was the Beast" of
tie Holy Writ was quite evident to the
cracked Drained followers of Crom-
well. At later period a multitude of
honest folks were fully convinced that
! Napoleon Bonaparte was the unfor-
tunate beast described in the Book of
| Revelations. More recently we have
heard a certain William Hohenzollern
Loudly acclaimed as tie Dutch Beast"
Of the Apocalypse, and properly so,
no doubt. However, in this connec-
ton, we do not use the word "beast"
in its Scriptural sense, nor yet in a
Pickwickian sense, but only as a succ-
word-for want of more tenderer"
word, as Sam Weller would say. His
tory has supplied so many of these
remarkable beasts that the Hagenbeck
meragerie would have looked like a
basket of Easter rabbits in COMPARE
son.
But, though often Cncountering this
malevolent monster in the course of
human history, it is seldom we have
real millennium. While we have
never lad any substantial difficulty in
establishing the identity of the
Beast, whenever tie saints arrive
to begin their reign of a thousand
years, we always strike snag; and
the circumstance gently recalls to our
disturbed imaginations the delicate
admonition of George Eliot that zig
norance gives one large range of
probabilities" One source of confu-
sion and ignorance in this regard is
their credentials with them. This
failure, of course, is due to an over
sight-to "swcet forgetting" let us
say, like an unredeemed promise to
pay a debt concerning which memory
no longer lends her bright effulgence
until assisted by notice from the
bank. But these discussions were
bootless did they not lead the reader
to the main purpose of these remarks.
! Candor demands that this purpose be
no longer hidden. Therefore we no
longer hesitate. We boldly avow our
intent to supply by irrefutable argu-
ment those missing links in the chain
of evidcnce-bleGsed tie!-which binds
US to the juggernaut of the saints.
That the millennium has arrived
again, we do most solemnly asscver-
ate. The dawning of the new day is
here once more, and civilization, fresh
from its orgie of blood, is all bedizened
with sanity aureoles and streakings Of
morning light, including the blue
streak and the yellow streak. Burle-
son has advanced the telephone charg-
es, the railroad rates refuse utterly to
come down, Joe Folk has discovered
that the League of Nations comes dir
rect from God, government taxes are
working like gas-meters, the st. Louis
Republic repeatedly declares 81 am
, my brothers keeper" and John d.
Rockefeller says lie doesn't want any
more money-but he hasn't reduced
the price of oil.
However, if we read history Alright,
this millennium isn't working exactly
like the first one did. At the end of a
, thousand years after the birth of
, Christ, just as the Capetian dynasty
| was being established in France, and
, when Hugh and Robert Capet were be-
ginning to get their claws in the car
pet, along came the millennium and
started all kinds of trouble. 1t just
trottcd right out into the middle of
r the road, like settin' hen in front of
! an automobile. Everybody quit work
: the medieval analogy of our mod
: ern general strike. But here the
:, analogy abruptly ends. In the year
one thousand the world gave itself ov-
er to fasting and prayer. But every
body isn't doing it now. In those days
the rich and great focked to the mon
r asteries, and gave their estates to the
= church. But this millennium is diff
3 ferent. Nobody is giving away any
| thing nowadays but government mon
) ey; and all governments, we believe
are not doing that. And, instead of
eHuoWlHS tle CHuISileS aIlIu iiloHttSteI'
} les, the rich and great have all Joined
/ the Anti-Saloon League.
5 But, for all that, the millennium is
as aforesaid, now in our midst. For
t proof we need but refer to our leading
newspaper and magazine editors, and
some of our peerless political leaders
These great brains, perching upon the
very hill-tops of truth, can see better
/, and farther than the common herd
= who moo and chew the cud in the low
i, pastures of parochial ignorance. Some
= of these mental colossi (as Sidney
Smith would say) haven't even body
d enough to cover their minds decently;
: their intellects are exposed. But lei
a us get back to our millennium. An.
t other indubitable evidence of its pres.
d ent existence is the universal accept.
y ance of the doctrine of brotherhood.
To those irreverent and irrationa
Z bipeds who still doubt that this doc.
{ trine of brotherhood is now incarnate
o in the flesh of civilized man, we car
only say with Samuel johnson: "Sir
. I have found you a reason; l am moi
obliged to find you an understanding.
ii Why. in Russia TODAY thew are 81