See page xvi.

vii

ever have aspired; but it is not the utmost endeavour of My Heart. .I owe them more than Paradise, more than the treasures of My knowledge; I owe them My life, My nature, My eternal and infinite substance. If I bring My servants and friends into My house, if I console them and make them quiver with joy, pressing them in the embrace of My charity, this will quench their thirst and their desires superabundantly, and more than is necessary for the perfect repose of their hearts; but it is not enough for the contentment of My divine Heart, for the quenching and perfect satisfaction of My love. I must be the soul of their soul, I must penetrate and imbue them in My Divinity, just as fire absorbs iron, and I must unite Myself to them in an eternal face to face, showing Myself to their minds, unclouded and unveiled, without the intervention of the senses. My glory must illuminate them, exude and shine through all the pores of their being, so that, "knowing Me as I know them, they may become gods themselves."'*

To bring that influence to light it was enough to assemble Theresa's testimony as found in The Story of a Soul and to grant it the importance which it deserves. Two of Theresa's unpublished fragments,** which I am able to add to these pages, confirm my conclusion and render its full significance clear.

"This book had been lent to Papa by my dear Carmelites; so, contrary to my usual practice (for I did not read Papa's books), I asked to read it.

"This book was one of the greatest graces in my life. I read it at the window of my study, and the impression which it made upon me is too intimate and sweet for me to express. I copied out several passages about perfect love and the welcome which God will give His elect when He Himself will become their great and eternal reward. I kept on saying the loving words which had enkindled my heart. All the great truths of religion and the mysteries of eternity entranced me."

Here is one of the passages copied out by Theresa. Taken from the fifth Conference "On Purgatory" (p.205), it is given as a quotation from St. John Chrysostom with no precise reference. Theresa had kept it in the Manuel du Chretien, which she used at the Carmel. It is still there.

* See page 142.

** They are now integrated into The Story of a Soul, and are, naturally, to be found in the autobiographical manuscripts.

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"The man who is inflamed with the fire of divine love is as indifferent to glory and ignominy as if he were alone on earth and unseen. He spurns temptation. He is no more troubled by suffering than he would be if it were borne in a body other than his own. What is full of sweetness for the world has no attraction for him, He is no more liable to be ensnared by any attachment to creatures than gold, seven times tested, is liable to rust. Such are, even on earth, the effects of divine love when it takes firm hold of a soul."

30th May, 1887.*

We also know that, while at the Carmel, Theresa advised her sister Celine to have a person whose faith was shaken read the Conferences of Fr. Armin-jon.** We can appreciate this reliance even better when we meet Theresa and Celine at the Belvedere. For the present, here is a clarification of a singular, historical misunderstanding. Not long ago, a biographer, who sought to be incisive and candid, diagnosed an immense pride in Theresa of Lisieux, for the conclusive reason that she "ended up writing -and this caps everything else - 'He (God) knows that it is the only way to prepare us to know Him as He knows Himself, and to become gods ourselves.'"***

A strange objectivity, which takes scandal out of ignorance! In the first place, it is not correct to say that Theresa ended up in this folly: that is how she began. The phrase for which she is reproved Theresa really did write, and underline, in her third letter to Celine, 23rd July 1888.****

However, in writing this phrase, the young Carmelite simply proves that she was still under the spell of what she was reading, before leaving the world; and what delighted her in the writings of Fr. Arminjon was the most authentic echo of Scripture and Tradition. To grasp the psychology of the saints, no sympathy can suffice that does not take care to discover the actual doctrine by which they live.

* Carmel of Lisieux Documentation. Theresa herself dated her copy. _

** Cf. Letter CVI to Celine, 3rd April 1891.

*** Sainte Therese de Lisieux by Lucie Delarue-Mardrus: p.93

**** Cf. The Story of a Soul, p.318, date corrected by Carmel of Lisieux Documentation.

ix

In the next extract Mgr. Combes sets out the precious confidential details which Celine (Sister Genevieve of the Holy Face) related about what she called the "Belvedere conversations," that is, the conversations which the two sisters, _Theresa and Celine, had around Pentecost, 1887, as together they read The End of the Present World on the balcony of the upper room (the Belvedere) at the "Buissonnets".

"It seems to me," said Theresa in The Story of a Soul, "that we received very great graces. As the Imitation says, God at times communicates Himself amidst brilliant splendour; at other times, softly veiled in shadows or figures. Thus did He condescend to show Himself to our hearts; but how transparent and light that veil was! Doubt would have been impossible; faith and hope departed from our souls, as love made us find on earth Him whom we had been seeking."

The value of such a disclosure can hardly be exaggerated. What credence should be accorded to it?

When asked how accurate it was, the other actress in these scenes from Earth and Heaven, Celine, or rather, the venerable Sister Genevieve of the Holy Face, was pleased to declare the following:

"Those conversations at the Belvedere left such a profound and clear memory in me that I remember them as if it were yesterday. What Theresa wrote about them in The Story of a Soul not only does not appear exaggerated, but seems rather an understatement. We really did live through hours of heavenly consolation. What words could describe them? Often we would begin by repeating, with unimaginable fervour, the words of St. John of the Cross: 'Lord! To suffer and be despised for you.1 Yes, to this we aspired with all our strength. Then we would think of Heaven, and repeat to one another the words of Fr. Arminjon: 'And the grateful God calls out: Now it is My turn.'* Then, as it were, we left the earth for eternal life. As our saint wrote, faith and hope disappeared, and we possessed God in love. After so many years, I can declare that it was not a flash in the pan or a passing enthusiasm, but an irresistible impulse towards God. It seems to me that we were no longer in this world. It was ecstasy."

In explanation of this term, which seemed to her the only one capable of expressing such a state, Sister Genevieve added:

"This ecstasy did not leave us unconcious, nor raise us above the ground. I can still see Theresa clasping my hands, I can see her lovely eyes filled with tears. It was the ecstasy of St. Augustine and St. Monica at Ostia."**

"What a rewarding text for a historian." [Footnote by Mgr. Combes ]

Carmel of Lisieux Documentation.

X

Such was, moreover, the opinion of Theresa herself. Here is what I have just learnt that she observed, on this point, in her unpublished reminiscences :

"I do not know whether I am mistaken, but it seems to me that the outpouring of our souls was like that of St. Monica with her son at the port of Ostia, when they were lost in ecstasy at the sight of the wonders of the Creator. I think that we received graces ‘of as high an order as those granted to the great saints."

Such an impression, in a soul so humble, such a convergence of testimony, permit of no doubt in the mind of the historian. Theresa - and her sister, for Theresa’s solitary life began only at the Carmel -received, at the Belvedere, unitive graces binding her to God by sensible love which, whatever system of spiritual theology one professes, seem fully to deserve the name of "mystical" and which, in

Theresa's interior journey, assume the character of pathos and form around it, as it were, a fiery reflection. The faith and hope of these two children having reached their climax, their charity grows to such an extent that it almost brings about in their souls the elimination of self which is its characteristic, and which opens the way to the Beatific Vision. Superseding, by its very intensity, all obscure perceptions and hidden desires - an act of possession so immediate, so complete and captivating that it compels recognition as a manifestation of God, present and Himself vouching for His presence - it leaves practically no room for those earthly virtues of hope and faith."

In the last extract from his book that we are reproducing Mgr. Combes first notes that in July 1889 Theresa wrote to Celine:

"It is a great martyrdom to love Jesus, without feeling the sweetness of that love, it is a martyrdom... Well, let us die martyrs... Oh, Celine...gentle echo of my soul, do you understand?... Unseen martyrdom, known to God above, which the creature's eye cannot discover, martyrdom without honour or triumph... That is love carried through to heroism. But, one day, God will gratefully exclaim: 'Now, it is My turn.'**

It would have been impossible for her to have anticipated her historian with greater generosity and kindness! So Theresa took the trouble of writing down at least once the phrase which she- had read enthusiastically from Fr. Arminjon's pen, as a guaran- *

*

Letter LXXII to Celine, 14th July 1889.

xi

tee to us that, at a certain time, she really did make it the guiding theme of her interior life, the foundation of. her hope and the- stimulus for all her sacrifices, "j* — _ —_ —

(End of extracts from Introduction to the Spirituality of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus by Mgr. A. Combes.)

It was those passages by Mgr. Coombes - according to the Foreword to the French, edition which we were refused permission to translate and reproduce - which decided the Office Central de Lisieux to republish the book.** We suggest that they should be sufficient to persuade any reader to take the book with the utmost seriousness.

We must now say a few words on the editing policy we have adopted with this book.

It is our belief that a publisher’s overriding aim with a work such as this should be fidelity to the original and in particular we have been determined not to abridge it in any way, despite the pressures of cost in reproducing it in full and the reluctance of many people today to read a book of any significant length. Occasionally, however, difficulties arose from the fact that The End of the Present World, although a masterpiece, is not entirely without flaws. In one or two passages, for instance, Fr, Arminjon allows himself to be beguiled into giving, quite unnecessarily for his purpose, summaries of hypotheses advanced by scientists of the nineteenth century, as in our own century, in the guise of accepted scientific facts, and into presenting them as though they were scientific facts; sometimes his Scriptural quotations are not completely accurate; and once or twice even clear theological errors occur. The "scientific" passages we were tempted to omit completely; but we decided that the integrity of the translation as a translation must take precedence over the elimination of errors of this kind, and we therefore restricted ourselves to drawing attention to them in footnotes. In the case of one error in theology.

* [Footnote by Mgr. Combes] A year before this letter, Theresa had already written to Celine, on 23rd July 1888, a year after the Belvedere conversations: "He is not far away. He who watches, He who begs this sorrow and agony of us, is close at hand. He needs it for souls, for our souls. He. wants to give us such a beautiful reward! His ambitions for us are so great, but how will He be able to say My Turn, if our turn has not come, if we have not given Him anything?"

** In the same Foreword the French publishers draw attention to a coincidence of dates which gives unmistakable indication of the book's electrifying effect on St. Theresa. The book was lent to her by her father in May 1887 and it was on 29th of May in the same year that she obtained her father's consent to enter the Carmelite convent in Lisieux at the age of fifteen.

xiv

FOREWORD BY FR. ARMINJON

Dear Reader,

It has seemed to us that one of the most melancholy fruits of rationalism, the fatal error and great plague of this century, the pestilential source whence our revolutions and social disasters arise, is the absence of the sense of the supernatural and the profound neglect of the great truths of the future life. "With desolation shall the earth be laid waste," because the majority of men, fascinated by the lure of fleeting pleasures, and absorbed in their worldly interests and the care of their material affairs, no longer fix their thoughts on the great principles of the Faith, and stubbornly refuse to retire within themselves. It may be said of our present generation what the prophet Daniel said, in his time, of the two old men of Babylon: "They perverted their own mind and turned away their eyes that they might not look unto Heaven nor remember just judgements."[1]

The two causes of this terrifying indifference and profound, universal lethargy are, obviously, ignorance and the unrestrained love of sensual pleasures which, by darkening the interior eye of the human soul, bring all its aspirations down to the narrow level of the present life, and cut it off from the vision of the beauties and rewards to come. Now, since wise men have found at all times that, "for extreme illnesses, extreme treatments are most fitting," it seemed to us that the most efficacious remedy with which to fight confidently against the inveterate evil of naturalism was a lucid, clear and exact exposition, without diminution, of the essential truths dealing with the future life and the inevitable termination of human destiny.

Perhaps we shall be accused of expressing this or that assertion of ours too crudely and starkly, and of broaching the most serious and formidable points of Christian doctrine, without, at the same time, modifying and softening them so as to adapt them to the prejudices or apathy of certain souls, unacquainted with such grave considerations - like a physician who carefully allows only a limited amount of light to a sick friend, in order not to hurt his painful eyes by excessive glare. However in the religious and supernatural order the phenomena and effects wrought upon the soul are often the reverse of those which occur in the physical and material order. In the visible world, an excessive amount of light dazzles: it leads to dimness of vision and causes blindness. On the other hand, as soon as the mind enters the intellectual realm, and is transported into the vast sphere of invisible and uncreated matter, excess is no longer to be feared. Jesus Christ is the great luminary of our intellects, the food andlife of our hearts: He is never

[1] Daniel 13:9.

XV

better understood, or more loved, than when He manifests Himself liberally in the integrity of His doctrine and the supereminent splendours of His divine personality. The example of the Apostles, announcing the Gospel amidst the twilight of paganism, and boldly preaching "Jesus Christ crucified" before the Roman Senate and amidst the philosophers of the Areopagus, is enough to tell us that truth is attractive to souls naturally Christian, and that it enlightens and convinces them only insofar as it is presented to them in all its strength and all its clarity. Our trial is limited in its duration to the period of the present life. If, as the rationalists maintain, this life is only a link in the chain of our destiny, and if the course of time wherein man is subject to strife, temptation and the blandishments of the senses and of creatures should continue indefinitely, then Jesus Christ will never be king, virtue brings no hope, and evil will remain eternally triumphant. Thus it is quite certain that the scene which is being played here below will, sooner or later, reach its climax and end. Mankind will then enter upon a new phase of existence, and all that we cherish, all that we search after in this present life, will be less than a shadow, sheer inanity. This is a certain fact, which all our discoveries and the marvels of our genius will not be able to set aside. Now the moral value of life is determined by the end to which it tends, just as the utility of a road is estimated by the traveller only insofar as it helps to bring him more surely and directly to the final point of the journey he has undertaken. Accordingly, to deal with the future life and the last ends is really to expound the science and philosophy of human life, setting out the fundamental principles on which the whole of perfection and morality is based.

The volume of our conferences which we are publishing is a continuation of the one which we brought out, three years ago, on the Reign of God. The reign of God is inaugurated, grows and comes to its completion in the course of time; it will not be perfect and consummated until the age to come. So, instead of giving our book the title End of the Present World and Mysteries of the Future Life, we could, with equal justice, have called it The Triumph of Jesus Christ and His Church in the Future Life.

Our arguments and maxims on the vanity of the "figure of this passing world," the futility of all undertakings conceived outside the perspective of the Faith and not having the final end as their aim, the irremediable misfortune reserved for the wicked, and our other subjects -the advent and reign of Antichrist and the temple of immortality, the rewards destined for the just, the restoration of fallen man through the law of sacrifice and the purifying crucible of suffering - seemed useful to us in order to shed the salve of consolation upon wounded and embittered hearts, to lift up disheartened and dejected souls and, in the calamitous and troubled days through which we are living, to help Christians become men of "Sursum", by inspiring them with resignation and patience; in order, furthermore, to strengthen them amidst the present sorrows, by raising up their hopes and desires towards a better fatherland.

xvi

By drawing upon the pure founts of Tradition and the Fathers and instructing ourselves by the light of Holy Scripture, we have sought to satisfy the anxious and troubled souls of our time, and to offer them the true solution to the mysteries of life as taught to us by Christianity. May we contribute to making Jesus Christ and His Church loved, and to inculcating more and more in those who read our work this cardinal truth: "To serve God and keep His commandments is the whole of man!"

Chambery,

Feast of the Apparition of St. Michael the Archangel, 8th May 1881.

THE END OF THE PRESENT WORLD

AND

THE MYSTERIES OF THE FUTURE LIFE

FIRST CONFERENCE

The end of the world. - The signs which will precede and the circumstances which will accompany it.

Veniet dies Domini sicut fur, in quo coeli magno impetu transient.

But the day of the Lord shall come as a thief, in which the heavens shall pass away with great violence. (1 Peter 3:10)

Saint Paul teaches us that the present world is an immense laboratory where all nature is in ferment and labour until the day when, freed from all bondage and corruption, it will blossom out into a radiant and renewed order.[1]

Man himself, in his course here below, is no more than a traveller, sailing across the fluctuating, tempestuous sea of time, and the earth which bears him is but the boat destined to guide him towards the land of immortal and unending life.

Nations, too, like individuals, are destined one day to disappear.

The story of mankind would be no more than an inexplicable drama, a series of confused, aimless, isolated facts, if, sooner or later, it did not have its appointed time and climax. In the present natural order, everything with a beginning is destined to end; a continuous chain must have a link at both ends, not just one. The present world, precisely because it was created, necessarily tends towards its conclusion and end.

How will that great transformation be effected? What will be the conditions and the new form of our earth when, after it has been destroyed and completely transfigured by fire, it will no longer be watered by the sweat of man, and has ceased to be the troubled, blood-stained arena of our strife and passions? We shall speak of this presently.

In this first talk, our aim will be to recall the testimony of Holy Scripture and, particularly, that of

[1] Romans 8:21,22.

-2-

to-day’s Gospel,* which assure us that, after a longish period of centuries, the visible order of things on earth will give way to a new and permanent order, and the changing era of time will be replaced by the era of stability and repose.

As we broach this delicate and difficult subject, one of the most important that can be treated in Christian preaching, since it touches upon the present and future circumstances of our country and our destinies, it seems right to us to point out that we shall steer clear of every perilous opinion, relying neither upon dubious revelations nor apocryphal prophecies, and making no assertion which is not justified by the doctrine of the Sacred Books, or permitted by the authentic teaching of the Fathers and of tradition.

In the first four conferences we shall recall in turn: first, what the premonitory signs and indications of the end of the times are to be; secondly, what will be the marks and nature of the persecution by this man of sin, announced by the Apostle as the precursor of the final coming of the Son of God; thirdly, what will be the circumstances of the resurrection and judgement; finally, what will be the place of immortal life and the state of the world after the resurrection.

To-day, in our commentary on Sacred Scripture, and, particularly, on the 24th chapter of Saint Matthew, we shall seek to resolve these three fundamental questions:

First: Is the doctrine of the end of the times an

indubitable doctrine, founded on reason and in harmony with the facts of present-day science?

Secondly:

Thirdly:

May we deduce from the words of Christ whether the end of the times is near or remote?

By what means will this final cataclysm this great crowning change, come about?

In the face of these formidable problems which defy the light and grasp of human understanding, our voice is hesitant, and can only stammer. May your blessing, my Lord Bishop, strengthen it. [2] May the spirit of God enlighten our mind, and place on our lips words of truth, strength, wisdom and discretion!

I

The materialistic, atheistic science of our century, the sort which is propagated in magazines, taught from most official rostrums and given credence by the mainstream of present-day anti-Christian opinion, persists in regarding the order and perfection of the universe merely as the result of chance. It affirms that matter is eternal... Denying creation, it could not logically admit that the world can have an end. According to this false science,

* Note by the publishers of the English edition. It appears that this "conference" or lecture was originally delivered on the last Sunday after Pentecost when the Gospel is Matthew 74.1 S~35.

the present universe will always subsist or, if it becomes progressively better, this will be solely through the effect of man's genius, the increasing impulse given to the arts and industrial achievements, the varied combination and play of _ fluids and elements, decomposing and reconstituting themselves jto give birth to new forms - in short, by the application and activation of the innumer-ableand still unknown forces which nature conceals in her bosom; forces which, by themselves, are capable of surging forward into limitless and indefinite growth; and, just as the worm, in perfecting itself, turned into a quadruped, from quadruped to two-footed creature, from two-footed creature to man, in the same way, man, with the aid of science, will one day attain the pinnacle of his sovereignty. He will conquer time and space, make himself wings in order to propel himself towards the stars, and explore the wonders of the constellations. In the eyes of atheistic science, paradise and eternal life, as conceived by Christians, are an allegory and a myth. Progress is the last end, the law and foundation of the life of man, the final point and aim where all his thoughts and aspirations should converge. Let man courageously cast aside the bonds and darkness of superstition and of oppressive outdated beliefs, let him have faith in himself alone, and, in a more or less proximate future, he will be invested with an unlimited, unrestrained kingship over the elements and creation. Nature, completely subdued by his genius, will then open like the horn of plenty upon a new humanity, pouring forth the fullness of desirable goods; and if the present generations fail to attain this ideal of bliss, they may take comfort from the prospect that it will be the attribute of some more distant descendants, and all the more glorious for these, in that they will have acquired them independently, and without the assistance of God, and “will be solely the result of their own perseverance, efforts and ingenuity.

Need I say that these fantasies, these crass, nonsensical theories, are contradicted by reason and the common assent of all nations?

They are contradicted by Christian reason. If, in fact, as our Christian faith and conviction tell us, temporal life had its principle and beginning in God, it must also have in God its consummation and destiny. Man was created to know, love and serve God; and, if he did not succeed one day in possessing Him and being irrevocably united with Him, the Creator's plan, devoid of any rational end, would be no more than a strange aberration. Mankind, thwarted in its love, its tendencies and aspirations, would become another Sisyphus, or a sort of roulette ball, dancing in the air and condemned to spin forever on the wheel of fate's blind necessity. What place would there be for justice, morality, the security of families and of public authority, in a system where everything' was in a state of disorder and contradiction, where the ideal never became reality, good was never separated from evil, and no standard existed by which to decide the importance of moral living and the true sanction of human acts?

"History," a sceptical author of our time has said, "is the judge of peoples, and her judgement, which continues throughout the ages, renders the Last Judgement pointless and superfluous."

Our reply will be that the judgement of history is not a public judgement, whereas the evil is public and rises up with an arrogance which is a scandal to men and a constant outrage against God. The judgement of history remains incomplete, because every good or bad act is a

mainspring of good or evil, a seed of life or death, all the fruits and results of which its author could neither feel nor foresee. That is why, if the universal judgement had not been foretold to us, it would be our duty to demand it, to insist on it as a necessary consequence, as the final enactment of that divine Providence which guides the movement of history throughout the ages, and as a final measure to complete His work and place His seal on it.

This universal judgement is but the last scene of the universal drama: the general fulfilment of all the partial judgements emanating from God's justice. It is only on this understanding that history becomes, clear and comprehensible, that we shall see it, not 'as the confused mind and eyes of man imagine it to be, but as it really is, like a book open to every eye.[3]

A great orator of our time has said: "History is not over, it will begin in the valley of Josaphat."

Christian reason and the common assent of all nations thus bear witness that the world must end and that there will be a new order. This truth is also in conformity with science and observed facts.

It is a recognized principle, and a general law of nature, that everything which is subject to movement or decomposition, everything consumed by time or limited in extent, is liable to wear out and age, and, in the end, disappears and perishes. Science teaches us that no vital force, or created agent, has the power to deploy its energy beyond a limited duration, and that, by virtue of the creative law, the field of its activity is restricted within a given, sphere, the boundary of which cannot be crossed. The most perfect and soundly-built organisms could not be made to function indefinitely.

Not only living beings, such as animals and plants, but even minerals, are subject to opposing forces of affinity or repulsion, and tend continuously to separate in order to form new groupings. Thus, the hardest rocks and granite undergo corrosion and weathering which, sooner or later, will bring them tumbling down. Stars are seen to extinguish and vanish in the firmament. Every movement, even that of the heavens, tends to become slower. Eminent astronomers have detected, in the sun and the stars, losses of heat and light, admittedly imperceptible, which nevertheless will not fail, after the passage of many centuries, to have a disastrous effect on our climate and seasons. Be that as it may, it is certain that our earth no longer possesses the same fecundity or vegetative strength which it had in the first ages of the human race. Just as the world had its youth, so there will come a time when the world will have its twilight, when it will hasten towards its evening and decline.

These are truths of observation and common sense which reason grasps easily, but Christianity alone has succeeded in demonstrating their certainty and excellence. "It is in this, respect," a Protestant thinker has. said, "that Christian doctrine is quite distinct from philosophic doctrines. It affirms that a new existence awaits man after this life. An absolute requirement for the fulfilment of that existence is that nature, which has become obscure and impenetrable to man, should be explained and clarified in some future state, which will prove the*harmony between visible and invisible things,

[3] Hettinger: Apologie du Christianisme, vol.4, ch.16.

the transient and the everlasting, matter and spirit. "Only in that future, only with such an end to human existence, can the conscience of man find repose. For this hope we are indebted to Christ, whose promise permits us to expect, after the final crisis, a new earth and new heavens."[4]

~ So, the world will have an end; but is this end remote or near? That is a serious, exciting question, no less worthy of reflection by Christian souls.

Holy Scripture on this point does not leave us completely in the dark. Certainly, speaking of the exact date, Jesus Christ says: "But of that day and hour no one knoweth; no, not the angels of heaven, but the Father alone." On the other hand, He consented to give definite signs and indications, intended to let us know that the fulfilment of the prophecies is close, and that the world is nearing its end.

Jesus Christ has proceeded, in respect of mankind considered as a whole, in the same way as with individuals: thus, our death is certain, but the hour is unknown to us. None of us can say whether he will be living a week or a day from now, and I who am speaking to you do not know whether I shall complete the talk which I have begun. But, if we can be taken by surprise at any time, there are, nevertheless, signs which attest that our final hour is imminent, and that we should be labouring under a crass illusion if we imagined that we had a long stretch of life still awaited here below.

Our Lord tells us: "From the fig-tree learn a parable: When the branch thereof is now tender and the leaves come forth, you know that the summer is nigh. So you also, when you shall see all these things (wars, famines, earthquakes) , know ye “ that it is nigh, even at the doors." [5]

As a matter of fact, these public calamities and disturbances, and the alterations in the elements and in the normal course of the seasons, which will mark the final coming of the Son of God, are vague, indefinite signs... They have appeared, with greater or lesser intensity, in every ill-fated period of human history, and in all periods of crisis and religious disorder.