| Show THE COMING OF CHRIST LIBUT TOTTER has brought himself into notoriety on account of his alleged prediction as to the date of the coming of christ he is not only anly an array army officer but a professor in the yale university he has made some mathematical calculations based on the meaning of the word generation and the aimee and days and hours mentioned in holy writ he disclaims having prophesied as published in the papers that the end of the world will take place within this century and says he believe that the end will come for a million years he states further that he believes the millennium millen lum is a thousand years away he makes no pretensions to the gift of prophecy still he maintains that a mathematical calculation founded on biblical truths proves beyond that the messiah will come before the year vear 1900 22 this may look like a contradiction to those who see me no difference between the second advent the ushering in of the millennium and the end of the world but evidently totten regards them as unconnected events to occur at different periods also that while he believes his calculations afis correct he does not pretend to give them as predictions of his bla own here are his bis reckonings which we reproduce for the benefit of persons who take pleasure in such theories with the remark that we take no stock either in his notions about the meaning of certain scriptural terms or in ia his conclusions deduced from his figures and mathematics he says A generation in the true biblical sense is three score and ton ten years 70 years and so the 57 generations traced through the genealogies in the old testament equal years hence the fifty eighth generation began with year of the world the hours mentioned in the vineyard parable are each years multiplying these by the 12 hours we have 1836 which added to equals years of tte t ue world and the coave completion of the vineyard parable the he years since the birth of cir adam ill see the bridegroom who jhc of course is none other than christ himself now what is AM in our A D years the innocents of two years and younger to be put to death and in a very short abort time after that the eclipse of the moon took place it took place in the year SM according to josephus Jose and herod died in that year too now herod limited hla his order to children of two years yeara because about two years before that the fungi informed him of the birth birthon bir of the savior so christ was born about two years vears before the eclipse and the death of kerod herod occurred two years before SM that is now subtract birth of christ from A M to flud find the A D year and you have 1899 A D or in march 1899 the che bridegroom will wil come and awaken the foolish virgins it is clear from the sayings of the savior that the times and the seasons of the great occurrences mentioned above were ivere not known by the writers of the new testament scriptures indeed he declared they were not known even to him or to the angels calculations then based upon their writings must be simply gu guesses of no particular value to anybody and useful only as mental exercises exercise a it to is not reasonable to think that the writers writer a of the old testament books knew any more about the times of those events than the new testament scribes or ibes the angels and the redeemer therefore prognostications based upon the utterances of the old prophets must have at least as slender a foundation as those deduced from the sayings of early christian writers it follows then that without some new revelation from the father in whose knowledge these tinaa and seasons are kept the day and the hour will still be unknown to mortals and only disappointment if nothing worse will overtake those sanguine persons persona who think they have ingenuity enough to penetrate the divine secret in the revelations through the modern prophet joseph smith the times fixed for these grand events event are little litile more d definitely eff bitely given than in the older scriptures and if calculations we are made upon such dates as are mentioned therein the probabilities are that albl lar mistakes will result as an those into which biblical mathematical commentators menta tors have fallen that agat are we living in the days of the coming of the son is a fact established by ancient and modern revelation and made clear by the signs of the times 1 but the precise prellso dates of the great occurrences of the last days are yet unknown to men and it would be far better for devout people to prepare themselves and help to prepare others for the consummation to come than to indulge in profitless speculations as to days and hours and horns and heads and the meaning of obscure passages and words in ancient or modern scripture |
