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Show SpooK iPv dictions A reverend gentleman in the East, not we be lieve of the Coal Oil School of Philosophy, with that melancholy satisfaction peculiar to prophets 0 woe in all ages, has ascertained by some system sys-tem of figuring and process of analogy peculiar to himself, that the day of judgment and the last coming of the Lord is but ninety years away. Other gentleman, by, we suppose similar processes, pro-cesses, have been kind enough to ease our aching hearts by giving us a little more time. The reverend rev-erend gentleman would seem to base his conclusions con-clusions on periods of, as he says, "roughly speaking," 2,000 years between certain historical happenings, and in spite of the more or less haphazard hap-hazard style of his statement he stems reasonably reason-ably certain of his dates; the fact that scientific inquiry has played hob with his figures and contemporary con-temporary record would seem to imply a doubt as to the correctness of his historical data r'oes not seem to worry him. Of all the curious and non-understandable vagaries vag-aries of the human mind in all ages, that which we term for want of a better one, egotism, is the least comprehensible, and more particularly is this to be remarked upon, in an age like the present, pres-ent, when we boast so glibly of advancement, and glory so freely in our attainment of the Ultima Thule of all knowledge. In all ages, as far back as our meager record can take us, we say meager, as recorded history extends back but a matter of a few thousand years, we have the old feeling, reiterated with but trifling changes in its presentation, illustrated by "We are the people, all wisdom shall die with us." We have in all ages felt our importance and have probably mildly but sorrowfully wondered what would become of the world without us, dismissing dis-missing as unworthy of our great destiny any suggestion that in some way the universe and our one particular little sphere has managed to stagger along with some fair degree of success and" continuity for countless aeons -before we were ever thought of, and will doubtless continue con-tinue to do so long after we are, probably not even a memory. We of the orthodox dislike to think of these things, for theologies are born of tjie Ego, as knowledge is the great leveler of our self-esteem. We like to think that we are the concentration and perfection of the thought of all time and that all ages past must yield us the palm, acknowledging acknowl-edging but grudingly that the Iliad is at least equal to "The Light of Asia' and that the old Greek and Roman philosophers were perhaps the peers of Paley, Spurgeon and Henry Ward Beecher. We prate of ethics, but have no knowledge knowl-edge of them; we talk of justice, but do not grant It; we preach charity, but do not practice it; we acclaim liberty, but deny it to others; we pray to God the Merciful and let the poor go hungry, the sick suffer and the stranger within our gates go without a place to lay his head. Wo predict judgment in the name of Christ and visit it upon those who differ with us. The day of judgment may be near, it may be far off; it may be yet another figment of a self-centered, self-centered, fanatical imagination; that imagination which conceived a hell with Its fire and everlasting everlast-ing torture, and its beautiful twin consistency, infant damnation, both of which ve hope are now resting, and we have no wish to disturb them in that limbo to which all like degrading and barbaric bar-baric superstitions, together with "The day of judgment," should be consigned as unworthy of a generous, enlightened and charitable humanity Which with knowledge of larger, better and more ennobling work to do, is willing to let the unknowable un-knowable beyond, stay as it has for untold generations, gen-erations, impenetrable as the Sphinx and as silent. ' E. F. |